Month: October 2023

Thousands of meters beneath the Pacific Ocean lie vast deposits of the metals needed for the shift to renewable energy. Mining companies are ready to scoop up this sunken treasure strewn across an area more than half the size of the continental United States. But not much is known about the ecosystem deep beneath the ocean and what impacts mining these rocks might have. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more. …

A top U.N. agency is warning that if calls for a cease-fire in Gaza are not heeded, causalities will continue to mount, putting children in the densely populated Palestinian enclave at even greater risk. “Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children,” said James Elder, UNICEF spokesperson, Tuesday. “It is a living hell for everyone else.” The Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry says that more than 8,300 Palestinians in Gaza, including at least 3,457 children, have been killed since Israel began a punishing bombing campaign following the horrific massacre of its civilians by Hamas militants October 7. “From the earliest days of the unprecedented hostilities in the Gaza Strip, UNICEF has been forthright on the need for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, for the aid to flow and for children abducted to be released,” he said. “Like many others, we have pleaded for the killing of children to stop.” While Washington has thrown its support behind Israel, it has also called for the protection of civilians and pushed for the opening of humanitarian aid into Gaza as the Israeli military expands its ground campaign aiming to uproot Hamas, which is a U.S.-designated terrorist group. Since Israel partially lifted its blockade of Gaza on October 21, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, says 143 trucks carrying food, water, and medical supplies have entered Gaza through the Rafah Crossing with Egypt. “Before this escalation, there were 500 trucks on average going in every working day. So about 22 days …

With White House funding to put more electric cars on the road, some states are using the money to build out their part of a fast-charging EV network. Deana Mitchell has the story. …

In a little more than five years – sometime in early 2029 – the world will likely be unable to stay below the internationally agreed temperature limit for global warming if it continues to burn fossil fuels at its current rate, a new study says. The study moves three years closer the date when the world will eventually hit a critical climate threshold, which is an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since the 1800s. Beyond that temperature increase, the risks of catastrophes increase, as the world will likely lose most of its coral reefs, a key ice sheet could kick into irreversible melt, and water shortages, heat waves and death from extreme weather dramatically increase, according to an earlier United Nations scientific report. Hitting that threshold will happen sooner than initially calculated because the world has made progress in cleaning up a different type of air pollution — tiny smoky particles called aerosols. Aerosols slightly cool the planet and mask the effects of burning coal, oil and natural gas, the study’s lead author said. Put another way, while cleaning up aerosol pollution is a good thing, that success means slightly faster rises in temperatures. The study in Monday’s journal Nature Climate Change calculates what’s referred to as the remaining “carbon budget,” which is how much fossil fuels the world can burn and still have a 50% chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times. That is the threshold set by the 2015 Paris agreement. …

The US-based National Kidney Foundation says that each year, kidney disease kills millions of people worldwide because they don’t have access to affordable or available care. This problem of cost and access to care is also seen in Ghana, where kidney-related cases are on the rise in the Northern region’s Tamale Teaching Hospital. Alhassan Abdul Washeed reports. Camera: Eyor Zamani …

State and local health departments across the U.S found out in June they’d be losing the final two years of a $1 billion investment to strengthen the ranks of people who track and try to prevent sexually transmitted diseases — especially the rapid increase of syphilis cases. The fallout was quick. Nevada, which saw a 44 percentage-point jump in congenital syphilis from 2021 to 2022, was supposed to get more than $10 million to bolster its STD program budget. Instead, the state’s STD prevention budget fell by more than 75%, reducing its capacity to respond to syphilis, according to Dawn Cribb at the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health. Several states told The Associated Press the loss of funding is affecting efforts to expand their disease intervention workforce. These are people who do contact tracing and outreach and are key in stopping the spread of syphilis, which reached a low point in the U.S. in 2000 but has increased almost every year since. In 2021, there were 176,713 cases — up 31% from the prior year. “It was devastating, really, because we had worked so hard to shore up our workforce and also implement new activities,” said Sam Burgess, the STD/HIV program director for the Louisiana Department of Health. His state was slated to receive more than $14 million overall, but instead got $8.6 million to stretch until January 2026. “And we’re still scrambling to try to figure out how we can plug some of those funding gaps,” he …

Mouse embryos have been grown on the International Space Station and developed normally in the first study indicating it could be possible for humans to reproduce in space, a group of Japanese scientists said. The researchers, including Teruhiko Wakayama, professor of University of Yamanashi’s Advanced Biotechnology Centre, and a team from the Japan Aerospace Space Agency (JAXA), sent frozen mouse embryos on board a rocket to the ISS in August 2021. Astronauts thawed the early-stage embryos using a special device designed for this purpose and grew them on the station for four days. “The embryos cultured under microgravity conditions developed” normally into blastocysts, cells that develop into the foetus and placenta, the scientists said. The experiment “clearly demonstrated that gravity had no significant effect,” the researchers said in a study that was published online in the scientific journal iScience on Saturday. They also said there were no significant changes in condition of the DNA and genes, after they analysed the blastocysts that were sent back to their laboratories on Earth. This is “the first-ever study that shows mammals may be able to thrive in space,” University of Yamanashi and national research institute Riken said in a joint statement on Saturday. It is “the world’s first experiment that cultured early-stage mammalian embryos under complete microgravity of ISS,” the statement said. “In the future, it will be necessary to transplant the blastocysts that were cultured in ISS’s microgravity into mice to see if mice can give birth” to confirm that the blastocysts …

Runners undeterred by thick smog engulfing the Chinese capital ran the Beijing Marathon maskless on Sunday, many wearing shorts in one of the warmest Octobers on record. Despite a greyish brown smog settling, some 30,000 marathoners set off at 7:30 a.m. (2330 GMT) from Tiananmen Square on the route through four districts of the Chinese capital over 42.195 km (26.2 miles). Beijing was the second most-polluted major city in the world on Sunday, according to Swiss air-quality technology firm IQAir. In the Haidian district on Beijing’s outskirts, the sky looked dreary, but hikers and visitors showed up at the Fragrant Hills Park where many go to enjoy autumn foliage, according to a Reuters witness. China’s national forecaster advised the public to wear masks, warning on Sunday morning that air quality was reaching moderate or severe pollution. Smog and fog will blanket parts of China for the next few days, reducing visibility and affecting travel in northeastern, northern, central and some eastern provinces, the National Meteorological Center said on Sunday. Beijing’s observatory cautioned in the evening that visibility in most areas of the city will drop to less than 1 km (0.62 mile) overnight. The smoggy weather is expected to gradually weaken and dissipate from Friday, but not before heavy fog forecast to cover parts of Jiangsu, Anhui and Sichuan provinces over the next three days could reduce visibility to less than 200 meters (650 feet), the forecaster said. Steel production hubs in Tangshan, Handan and other cities in the northern …

The Australian Capital Territory, which includes Canberra and surrounding areas, Saturday became Australia’s first jurisdiction to decriminalize possession of small amounts of illegal drugs. The Australian Capital Territory, or ACT, now considers illegal drug use a health, not criminal, issue. While the ACT government has promised to remain tough on dealers and traffickers, it wants low-level cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine users to receive treatment, a police caution or a fine rather than going to court. Drugs will be confiscated. The law was passed in 2022 by the ACT Legislative Assembly. Hard drugs, including LSD, cocaine and methamphetime, remain illegal. Welfare and health campaigners welcomed the new measures, saying they will lead to more drug users getting help rather than being treated as criminals. Alice Salomon, the Head of Media and Advocacy at Uniting ACT, a community services organization, said in a statement Thursday that “a shift to a focus on health-based and community responses for drug use and dependency rather than seeing the police and the courts as the place where we seek to address this is long overdue but warmly welcomed.” Senior police officials say they fear the changes could encourage people to take illicit substances for the first time. ACT Chief Police Officer Neil Gaughan told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. the new laws are too permissive. “You know, I am concerned about people trying drugs that have not historically done it because I think there will be confusion between, particularly young people, who will not understand the difference …

Fighting the global environmental impacts of climate change unfortunately requires local impacts from mining the minerals needed for electric vehicles, wind turbines and power grids. The Biden administration aims to increase U.S. production of these critical minerals that China and other countries with weaker environmental standards have come to dominate. But local opposition is complicating the effort. VOA’s Steve Baragona looks at the battle over one such mine in the northern U.S. state of Minnesota. …

Iceland’s meteorological office reported Friday the Nordic Island nation’s southwestern Reykjanes Peninsula has been experiencing a “seismic swarm” of small earthquakes over the last three days, with at least 5,800 recorded since it began and around 1,000 since midnight Thursday. In a series of reports on its website, the meteorological office — known as the “Met” office — said the vast majority of the quakes have been under magnitude 3, although two in the last three days were over 4. The largest tremor, on Wednesday, measured 4.5 north of the town of Grindavík. While small earthquakes are a daily occurrence in the nation, situated between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates, the so-called seismic swarm is unusual. The earthquakes prompted the national police commissioner to declare a Civil Protection “Level of Uncertainty,” encouraging residents to secure loose objects in their homes and noting that the earthquakes could trigger rocks or loose earth to slide in areas with steep slopes. The Met office attributed the seismic swarm to stress changes in the earth’s crust induced by the flow of magma — molten rock — toward the surface beneath the Fagradalsfjall volcanic system. In an interview with Reuters, Met Office Research division chief Matthew Roberts said the earthquakes are a warning sign for a volcanic eruption sometime in the next 12 months, although he added that predicting the timing of earthquakes is difficult. Iceland’s last volcanic eruption, in July, occurred in an uninhabited part of the Reykjanes Peninsula after similar intense …

Wu Zunyou, an epidemiologist who helped drive the country’s strict zero-COVID measures in China that suspended access to cities and confined millions to their homes, died on Friday. He was 60. An announcement from China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention about Wu’s death gave no cause but said that “rescue measures failed.” Wu’s health had been poor. He disappeared from the public eye for months last year while battling cancer. Wu, who earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, had spent much of his early career working on HIV/AIDS prevention in China. Wu was instrumental in developing China’s flagship policy in the HIV epidemic among intravenous drug users, according to his biography on the UCLA website. In recognition of this work, he was awarded the 2005 International Rolleston Award. Later, he was also awarded a UNAIDS Gold Medal in 2008 for his overall work. Yet, as China battled the COVID-19 virus, Wu came to be criticized by some for his choice to publicly voice support for the country’s strict virus control measures even as the weaknesses of the strategy became more pronounced. “Dynamic zero-COVID is appropriate for China’s reality and is the best choice to control our country’s current COVID situation,” he said in April 2022, during the height of Shanghai’s lockdown. The strategy bought China time in the early days of the pandemic, but by 2022, as the virus became more and more easily spread, it showed signs of strain. The mega …

Researchers in Brazil have developed a vaccine designed to fight addiction to cocaine and its potent derivative crack — by preventing addicts from feeling the effects of the drugs and helping them stay on track for recovery. The drug, known as Calixcoca, was developed by a team at Brazil’s Federal University of Minas Gerais. Preliminary tests on animals were positive and the drug is set to move to human trials. Should it receive regulatory approval, the drug would be the first vaccine used to fight cocaine addiction, said the coordinator for the research team, psychiatrist Frederico Garcia. Garcia told Agence France-Presse the drug works by prompting the body to produce anti-cocaine antibodies that bind to the drug, making them too large to pass into the brain’s mesolimbic system, or “reward center,” where the drug normally stimulates high levels of pleasure-inducing dopamine. Testing suggests the drug also could reduce the risk of overdosing, as cocaine molecules, bound to the antibodies produced by the vaccine, would be unable to act on the heart or the arteries.  Tests on pregnant rats indicated the antibodies are passed on through a mother’s milk, suggesting the vaccine could protect nursing babies as well. Garcia cautioned the vaccine would not be a panacea and said it would be most helpful for recovering addicts who do not want to get hooked on the drug again following rehabilitation. He said clinical trials conducted by Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa will be needed to determine how the drug might be used …

The United Nations has begun an effort to help the world manage the risks and benefits of artificial intelligence. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday launched a 39-member advisory body of tech company executives, government officials and academics from countries spanning six continents. The panel aims to issue preliminary recommendations on AI governance by the end of the year and finalize them before the U.N. Summit of the Future next September. “The transformative potential of AI for good is difficult even to grasp,” Guterres said. He pointed to possible uses including predicting crises, improving public health and education, and tackling the climate crisis. However, he cautioned, “it is already clear that the malicious use of AI could undermine trust in institutions, weaken social cohesion and threaten democracy itself.” Widespread concern about the risks associated with AI has grown since tech company OpenAI launched ChatGPT last year. Its ease of use has raised concern that the tool could replace writing tasks that previously only humans could perform. With many calling for regulation of AI, researchers and lawmakers have stressed the need for global cooperation on the matter. The U.N.’s new body on AI will hold its first meeting Friday. Some information for this report came from Reuters.  …

China launched its youngest-ever crew for its orbiting space station on Thursday as it seeks to put astronauts on the moon before 2030. The Shenzhou 17 spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert in northwestern China atop a Long March 2-F rocket at 11:14 a.m. (0314 GMT) According to the China Manned Space Agency, the average age of the three-member crew is the youngest since the launch of the space station construction mission, state broadcaster CCTV earlier reported. Their average age is 38, state media China Daily said. Beijing is pursuing plans to place astronauts on the moon before the end of the decade amid a rivalry with the U.S. for reaching new milestones in outer space. This reflects the competition for influence between the world’s two largest economies in the technology, military and diplomatic fields. The trio — Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie and Jiang Xinlin — will replace a crew that has been on the station for six months. Tang is a veteran who led a 2021 space mission for three months. The new crew will conduct experiments in space medicine, space technology and other areas during their mission and will help install and maintain the equipment inside and outside the station, the agency said. On Wednesday, the agency also announced plans to send a new telescope to probe deep into the universe. CCTV said the telescope would enable surveys and mapping of the sky, but no timeframe was given …

A month after federal officials recommended new versions of COVID-19 vaccines, 7% of U.S. adults and 2% of children have gotten shots. The numbers, presented Thursday at a meeting held by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, come from a national survey of thousands of Americans conducted two weeks ago.  The data also indicated that nearly 40% of adults said they probably or definitely would not get the shot. A similar percentage of parents said they did not plan to vaccinate their children.  In late summer, government health officials made the nation’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign more like the annual flu campaign.  Officials approved updated shots that have a single target, an omicron descendant named XBB.1.5. They replaced vaccines that targeted the original coronavirus strain and a much earlier omicron version. Last month, the CDC recommended the new shots for everyone 6 months and older.  The government also transitioned to a commercialized system that relied on the health care industry — not the government — to handle the distribution of the shots. Many people who immediately went for shots said pharmacies or doctors didn’t have them.  Americans have been urged to get different iterations of the vaccines for more than 2½ years. This year, COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations fell to lower levels than seen in the previous three years.  Cases remain low compared with the pandemic’s early months. Even so, health officials say about 18,000 hospitalizations and 1,200 deaths are still being reported each week.  One expert at the meeting, …

Political leaders in the Mississippi River area are looking to form a multistate compact to manage threats from climate change, water pollution and drought-affected regions elsewhere. “Twenty million people drink from the Mississippi River and its tributaries every day, including me and my family,” said Colin Wellenkamp, executive director of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative. With the world’s fourth-largest basin, the Mississippi River supports more than 400 species of wildlife, has led to more than 350,000 jobs and generates more than $21 billion in annual tourism, fishing and recreation spending, according to the nonprofit group American Rivers. “Whether you’re looking at it from a clean water standpoint, an ecological standpoint, a shipping of goods standpoint, or even from national security, there’s not a more important waterway in our country,” Wellenkamp told VOA. “We need to come together to protect and manage this critical resource.” That’s what community and political leaders hope to do with a Mississippi River Compact to help unify lawmakers and residents along more than 3,700 kilometers (2,300 miles) of America’s most important river. The compact’s framework would join 10 states in the collective management of river resources in consultation with stakeholders, including environmental groups, businesses and riverfront communities, to promote transparency and a shared sense of responsibility for the river’s well-being. “When a farmer in a state upriver uses harmful fertilizer, for example, it affects the ability for fishermen to catch healthy fish at the bottom of the river in the Gulf of Mexico,” Wellenkamp …

Malawi is seeing a spike in cholera cases. This, just two months after the government lifted a public health emergency declaration that had been in place since early 2022. Chimwemwe Padatha has this story from Lilongwe, Malawi …

According to a 2023 report by the Global Action for Sustainable Development, Liberia is losing an entire generation to drug abuse, with its capital, Monrovia, alone having more than 800 drug hubs and an estimated 100,000 drug users. An older generation of rehabilitated child soldiers have moved to join the fight against drugs, using a behavioral therapy approach. Senanu Tord reports from Monrovia. Video editor: Henry Hernandez. …