Medics concerned about the effects on public health of environmental degradation marched Saturday on the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, demanding health authorities make climate change and biodiversity loss their top priorities.White-clad activists from the group Doctors for Extinction Rebellion marched from Geneva’s Place des Nations to WHO headquarters where they were met by Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus, and Maria Neira, director of environment, climate change and health.”The pandemic will end, but there is no vaccine for climate change,” Tedros said as he welcomed the activists outside the building. “We have to act now, in solidarity, to prevent and prepare before it is too late.”
Professor Valerie D’Acremont, an infectious disease specialist and co-founder of Doctors For Extinction Rebellion, called on the WHO “to be the driving force and guarantor of public policies that respect the health of all and preserve life.”
The activists handed Tedros a letter and a large hourglass, the symbol of Extinction Rebellion which wants to prompt a wider revolt to avert the worst scenarios of devastation outlined by scientists studying climate change.
Tedros later retweeted a message from the WHO stating both bodies were “standing in solidarity & urging global action” to end the climate crisis and protect health everywhere. “These are inextricably intertwined.”
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Month: May 2021
Talks Between Russian, Belarusian Leaders Continue Into Second Day: TASS
Talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko in the southern Russian town of Sochi continued into a second day on Saturday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Lukashenko flew into Russia on Friday for talks with Putin amid an uproar in Europe over the grounding of a passenger plane in Minsk and the arrest of a dissident blogger.
“Discussion between the two presidents continue today,” Peskov was quoted as saying by TASS news agency.
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Virus Fails to Deter Hundreds of Climbers on Mount Everest
A year after Mount Everest was closed to climbers as the pandemic swept across the globe, hundreds are making the final push to the summit with only a few more days left in the season, saying they are undeterred by a coronavirus outbreak in base camp.Three expedition teams to Everest canceled their climb this month following reports of people getting sick. But the remaining 41 teams decided to continue with hundreds of climbers and their guides scaling the 8,849-meter top in the season that ends in May, before bad weather sets in.”Even though the coronavirus has reached the Everest base camp, it has not made any huge effect like what is being believed outside of the mountain,” said Mingma Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks, the biggest expedition operator on Everest. “No one has really fallen seriously sick because of COVID or died like the rumors that have been spreading.”With 122 clients from 10 teams on Everest, the company led the biggest group but there were no serious illnesses among them, he said.Nepalese officials have downplayed reports of coronavirus cases on Mount Everest, apparently out of concern of creating chaos and confusion in the base camp. After a gap year of no income from climbers, Nepal has been eager to cash in on this year’s season.”Many people made it to the base camp, and it is possible that the people who went there from here could have been infected,” Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli said. “But that does not mean that it (coronavirus) has reached the entire mountain, maybe a part of the base camp or the area below that.”In April, a Norwegian climber became the first to test positive at the Everest base camp. He was flown by helicopter to Kathmandu, where he was treated and later returned home.FILE – In this Nov. 12, 2015, file photo, Mount Everest is seen from the way to Kalapatthar in Nepal.Prominent guide Lukas Furtenbach of Austria decided to halt his expedition this month and pull out his clients because of an outbreak among team members.After returning from the mountain, Furtenbach estimated more than 100 climbers and support staff have been infected. He said in an interview last week that it was obvious there were many cases at the base camp because he could see people were sick and could hear them coughing in their tents.”I think with all the confirmed cases we know now — confirmed from (rescue) pilots, from insurance, from doctors, from expedition leaders — I have the positive tests so we can prove this,” Furtenbach told The Associated Press.China last week canceled climbing from its side of Everest due to fears the virus could spread from Nepal.The climbing season was accompanied by a devastating surge in coronavirus cases in Nepal, with record numbers of daily infections and deaths. On Friday, Nepal reported 6,951 new confirmed cases and 96 deaths, bringing the nation’s totals since the pandemic began to more than 549,111 infections and 7,047 deaths.Another expedition, by the Telluride, Colorado-based company Mountain Trip, also announced it was pulling out of Everest.”While it’s a difficult decision to make when considering all of the work, years of preparation, sacrifice and resources that have went into the expedition, it’s the only sensible outcome from a risk management standpoint,” a statement by the company said.Six Sherpa guides working for the company have been evacuated to Kathmandu with COVID-19 symptoms, it said.A total of 408 foreign climbers were issued permits to climb Everest this season, aided by several hundred Sherpas and support staff who have been stationed at base camp since April.Since Everest was first conquered on May 29, 1953, thousands of people have scaled the peak and many Nepalese Sherpas have done it multiple times. Veteran Sherpa guide Kami Rita scaled the summit a record 25th time this month.
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EU Authorizes Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine for Young Adolescents
The European Commission has authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use in children as young as 12, widening the pool of those eligible to be inoculated, following similar approvals in the United States and Canada.The commission made the announcement Friday after the European Union’s medical regulator, the European Medicines Agency, recommended Friday the use of the vaccine in children ages 12-15, saying that data show it is safe and effective.”Extending the protection of a safe and effective vaccine in this younger population is an important step forward in the fight against this pandemic,” said Marco Cavaleri, the EMA’s head of health threats and vaccines strategy.It is now up to individual EU states to decide whether and when to offer the vaccine to young adolescents.Germany and Italy have already said they are preparing to extend their vaccination campaign to youths ages 12-15.Also Friday, Britain approved the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson. It is the fourth COVID-19 vaccine approved in the country, after inoculations made by Pfizer and BioNTech, AstraZeneca, and Moderna.French President Emmanuel Macron pledged Friday to help provide South Africa and other African countries with vaccine doses. During a visit to Pretoria, Macron said France would donate more than 30 million doses this year to the U.N.-backed COVAX global vaccine initiative.According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, South Africa has so far vaccinated roughly 700,000 people out of its population of 40 million.In Australia, Melbourne went back under lockdown on Friday, as health authorities said a cluster of confirmed positive COVID-19 cases had increased to 39.Health officials have ordered residents to stay home for seven days to prevent the infection from spreading and allow time to investigate how the virus was transmitted from a man being quarantined at a hotel.The outbreak has been traced to an overseas traveler who was found to be infected with an Indian variant of the coronavirus.The acting premier of Australia’s southern state of Victoria, James Merlino, told reporters in Melbourne that the new outbreak is the result of “a highly infectious strain of the virus, a variant of concern, which is running faster than we have ever recorded.”Stores are closed during a lockdown to stop the spread of the new coronavirus in downtown Ribeirao Preto, Sao Paulo state, Brazil, May 28, 2021.During the lockdown, residents will be allowed to leave their homes only for essential work, school, shopping, caregiving, exercise and medical reasons, including receiving their scheduled coronavirus vaccinations.The new lockdown is the fourth one imposed on Victoria state since the start of the pandemic. The most severe period occurred in mid-2020 and lasted more than three months as Victoria was in the grip of a wave of COVID-19 infections that killed more than 800 people.Merlino had already imposed a new set of restrictions for Australia’s second most populous state, including limiting the size of public gatherings and making mask wearing mandatory in restaurants, hotels and other indoor venues until June 4.In other developments Friday, India reported 186,364 new coronavirus infections during the previous 24 hours, its lowest daily rise since April 14. Deaths rose from the previous day to 3,660.In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said children at summer camp who are not vaccinated do not have to wear masks outside unless they are in crowds or in sustained close contact with others. The new guidance comes as millions of children are set to resume summer camp this summer after the closure of many camps last year due to the virus.Americans are celebrating the start of the Memorial Day weekend by hitting the roads and skies as they seek to cast off more than a year of pandemic restrictions and try to resume a sense of normalcy.U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas urged Americans to be patient this weekend at busy airports.”People will see lines because there’s going to be a tremendous amount of people traveling this weekend,” he told ABC’s Good Morning America on Friday.More than 1.8 million people went through U.S. airports on Thursday, and that number is expected to rise over the weekend.Also in the United States, Facebook said it will no longer remove statements that COVID-19 was created by humans or manufactured “in light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts.”A man in a protective suit stands next to the burning pyre of a person who died of COVID-19, at a crematorium in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, May 28, 2021.Since the beginning of the pandemic outbreak, Facebook has changed its policy several times on what is and is not allowed on the topic. Another claim banned from discussion on the platform is the notion that vaccines are toxic or not effective.The American Civil Liberties Union requested Thursday that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “provide immediate vaccine access to the more than 22,100 people in ICE custody.””Over the course of the pandemic, ICE detention facilities have been some of the worst hotspots for the spread of COVID-19, with positivity rates five times greater than prisons and 20 times greater than the general U.S. population,” said the ACLU’s Eunice Cho.
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Biden Budget Substantially Boosts Foreign Aid, Diplomacy, but Raises Defense by 1.7%
U.S. President Joe Biden sent his first formal budget request to Congress on Friday afternoon, detailing a proposal to spend nearly $6 trillion in 2022 that includes significant increases in funding for foreign aid, diplomacy and climate change while providing a modest increase in Defense Department spending.The U.S. will still have the largest military budget in the world under the proposed $715 billion Pentagon request for 2022, but the relatively small 1.7% increase drew immediate opposition from Republican defense hawks in Congress, who called the proposal “wholly inadequate.”In a meeting with reporters Friday afternoon, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen H. Hicks said Pentagon leadership was confident that the budget request “positions the Department of Defense to meet the array of security challenges that we face today and in the future.”The massive budget document was accompanied by a message from Biden saying the proposal was consistent with a promise he made to a joint session of Congress in April that “America is on the move again, and that our democracy is proving it can deliver for our people and is poised to win the competition for the 21st century.”Throughout the more than 1,700 pages of charts, tables and text, the fiscal 2022 budget request reflects Biden’s inclination to work with allies and presents a sharp contrast with the administration of the previous president, Republican Donald Trump, who favored a go-it-alone approach in international relations.“From the COVID-19 pandemic to climate change, from the growing ambitions of China to the many global threats to democracy, successfully addressing global challenges will require working alongside and in partnership with other nations,” the document says.“After years of neglect, the budget makes critical investments in diplomacy and development that would restore the health and morale of the nation’s foreign policy institutions, as well as America’s relationships with key partners and allies,” it says. “Diplomacy would once again be a centerpiece of American foreign policy, and America would once again be a leader on the world stage.”Domestic focusWhile the international elements of the budget proposal are substantial, there is no mistaking the fact that the bulk of the new Democratic administration’s focus in the budget is domestic.FILE – Kim Lewis, an associate dean at Howard University in Washington, autographs an American Jobs Plan sign after participating with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in a discussion at the university, May 3, 2021.Biden’s plan contains funding for his two main domestic policy efforts: the $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan and the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan.The spending proposals are consistently referred to as investments in the country’s future — language that tacitly acknowledges the near-term costs, which will drive spending as a percentage of gross domestic product to historically high levels and add more than $1.3 trillion to the national debt every year for a decade.In a briefing for reporters Friday morning, Shalanda Young, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the administration does not look at the rising national debt with the same level of alarm as so-called fiscal hawks who want to see an end to deficit spending.“For the near term and the medium term, we believe the most important test of our fiscal health is real interest payments on the debt,” she said. “That’s what tells us whether debt is burdening our economy and crowding out other investments.”Young added, “This budget takes advantage of the fiscal space created by historically low interest rates to make urgently needed investments that will contribute to growth and shared prosperity.”Swift reactionsIn Washington, reaction to the president’s budget request broke along predictable party lines. John Yarmuth, the Kentucky Democrat who chairs the House Budget Committee, called it “transformative” and said it “will ensure we emerge from these past 14 months of crisis stronger and better prepared for the future than ever before.”FILE – House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth, D-Ky., speaks with reporters before the House votes to pass a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package, during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 26, 2021.He added, “Investing in the American people has always been a good bet, but with interest rates low and the need high, it’s a sure thing. As past crises have shown, doing too little will cost us far more in the end.”Mara Rudman, executive vice president of the liberal Center for American Progress, said in a statement: “President Biden’s budget tackles the country’s most urgent challenges. Along with the priorities outlined in the American Jobs Plan, and the American Families Plan, the policies released today will help the country recover from the pandemic and build a clean energy future, while also investing in workers and families who will create long-lasting, inclusive economic growth.”Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell led a Republican response that thoroughly condemned the plan.FILE – Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky speaks at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Feb. 13, 2021.“President Biden’s proposal would drown American families in debt, deficits and inflation,” McConnell said in a statement. “Even after the massive tax hikes Democrats want to force on the American people, they’d still have the government running trillion-plus-dollar deficits every year. Democrats want to borrow and spend on a scale that America has not seen since we had to fight and win World War II. Our debt burden would break all records, eclipsing even the 1940s.”Right-wing activist groups were similarly upset. Adam Brandon, the president of FreedomWorks, released a statement that said the budget puts the country on a “fast track to fiscal disaster.”“The term ‘fiscally irresponsible’ doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Brandon said. “ ‘Intentional malice’ is more appropriate. President Biden is sacrificing our nation’s future for his own political expediency, enabled by profligate spenders from all around.”International aidAfter several years in which the Trump administration sought to cut spending on diplomacy and international aid, the Biden administration is planning to reinvest in both. The budget for diplomatic engagement and foreign assistance is set to increase to $63.8 billion under Biden’s plan, an increase of $6.1 billion over last year. That includes $58.5 billion for the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, an increase of $5.4 billion over last year.The budget request for the foreign assistance funding would increase by $4.4 billion to $43.7 billion. The bulk of that increase would go to bilateral economic assistance, on which the administration proposes to spend $28.1 billion in fiscal 2022.Also increasing would be funding to multilateral aid programs, such as the Global Health Program managed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, rising sharply by $1.45 billion to $3.5 billion, and contributions to multilateral development banks such as the International Development Association and the African Development Fund, up $1.4 billion to $3.1 billion.Funding for international security assistance, including narcotics control, military training and peacekeeping operations, would jump $265 million to $9.2 billion in 2022.FILE – The blades of wind turbines catch the breeze at the Saddleback Ridge wind farm in Carthage, Maine, March 19, 2019.Climate changeIn addition to the climate change-related elements of the president’s infrastructure plan, which includes multiple green energy initiatives, the budget would increase the U.S. commitment to the global fight against a warming planet.The administration is proposing $36 billion more in investment in climate resilience and clean energy, backing up the president’s pledge to put the country on a path to net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.It also includes a $1.2 billion contribution to the international Green Climate Fund and $485 million for other multilateral climate change reduction programs. That comes on top of $700 million of the State Department and USAID budget directed toward international climate assistance.Military spendingThe federal budget is made up of two broad components: discretionary spending, which Congress must approve each budget cycle, and mandatory spending, which is required under existing law. The former includes funding for the executive branch agencies and programs; the latter is made up of spending on programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.This year’s budget was the first in a decade in which the administration was not constrained by rules that required that discretionary defense spending and nondefense discretionary spending to rise at roughly the same rate. For that reason, Biden was able to propose a budget that increased nondefense discretionary spending by 16%, but raised defense spending only by 1.7%.The U.S. will still have military spending at a level greater than the next 10 largest militaries combined under the proposed $715 billion Pentagon budget for fiscal 2022, but the relatively small increase drew sharp criticism from congressional conservatives.In a joint statement, Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Republican Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, called the proposal “wholly inadequate.”“A budget like this sends China and our other potential adversaries a bad signal — that we’re not willing to do what it takes to defend ourselves and our allies and partners,” they said in a joint statement.FILE – Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin speaks during a briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, May 6, 2021.Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday in an appearance before the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense that “this budget provides us the ability to create the right mix of capabilities to defend this nation and to deter any aggressors.“It adequately allows us to begin to prepare for the next fight,” he added. “It in fact does provide us the ability to go after the capabilities that we need.””It strikes an appropriate balance between preserving present readiness and future modernization,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark A. Milley said at the same hearing. “It is biased towards [the] future operating environment and the readiness it’s going to take in the future for this fundamental change in the character of war that we are currently undergoing.”VOA’s Carla Babb contributed to this report.
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White House Proposes Slight Boost in Aid for Afghan Forces
The United States is hoping more money will help make up for the absence of U.S. combat troops on the ground in Afghanistan.U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday unveiled his proposed $715 billion defense budget for fiscal year 2022, including $3.3 billion for Afghan forces.FILE – President Joe Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, May 13, 2021.The request is $300 million more than what the U.S. gave Afghanistan this past fiscal year. If approved by Congress, the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund money would help cover equipment and training requirements, as well as infrastructure, for the 352,000 members of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.”We believe that given that we’re pulling out of Afghanistan, we need to provide some additional security support for the forces there,” Anne McAndrew, the Pentagon’s acting Under Secretary of Defense and Chief Financial Officer, told reporters.Military planners are also requesting $8.9 billion to cover so-called “direct war costs” in Afghanistan, about a $4 billion reduction from the previous year.McAndrew said some of that money will help cover residual expenses from the current withdrawal from Afghanistan as well as help pay for “an over-the-horizon capability outside Afghanistan.”In addition to the military aid, Afghanistan could also be getting more funding from the U.S. State Department.The State Department on Friday said its proposed FY 2022 budget includes about $360 million for Afghanistan — an increase of $34 million — to help combat terrorism, counter the narcotics trade and protect rights for women.U.S. diplomats and defense officials have Zalmay Khalilzad, special representative on Afghanistan reconciliation, speaks during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the US-Afghanistan relationship on Capitol Hill on May 18, 2021.Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, has said Taliban officials have assured him they “seek normalcy.””They have said to me that their views have evolved,” Khalilzad told lawmakers earlier this month. “They say the Afghan women have rights, including political participation, education, and work. … We will have to see.”Iraq, Syria forces see cutsWhile Afghan forces may be getting more money from the U.S. military, U.S. partner forces in Iraq and Syria could see their funding cut.The Pentagon’s proposed FY 2022 budget calls for just $522 million to help train and equip Iraqi security forces and vetted Syrian groups such as the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, down from a proposed $700 million the previous year.Under the new proposal, Iraqi forces would get just over $322 million, while the SDF and other U.S. partner forces in Syria would get $177 million, according to the Pentagon budget proposal.The U.S. currently has about 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria. Military officials say they expect those numbers to hold steady for the coming fiscal year.
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On World Menstrual Health Day, Cameroon NGOs Seek Free Kits to Battle Stigma
World Menstrual Health Day on May 28 is being observed in Cameroon with NGOs and girls asking the government to either subsidize sanitary pads or provide them for free, as they already do with condoms. At least 300 school children are gathered at the government school in the southwestern town of Buea on the occasion of this year’s World Menstrual Health Day. Fifteen-year-old Carine Ndzelen tells them in Lamnso, a language spoken in Cameroon, that young girls and women continue to suffer from stigma during their menstrual periods, and it’s considered taboo to even discuss it.She says it is unethical for students and teachers to mock girls who are seen with drops of blood on their skirts. She says menstruation is a normal vaginal bleeding that occurs as part of a woman’s monthly cycle indicating that her growth is normal. She says people should comfort and assist girls who menstruate by donating sanitary kits or clean pieces of cloth that can be used to absorb menstrual discharge.Ndzelen said the education of many young girls is undermined by limited access to hygienic menstrual products and poor sanitation infrastructure.Ernestine Oben is founder and coordinator of the NGO Able Women Cameroon that works for the emancipation of women and girls. She says the NGOs invited Ndzelen because of the ordeal she endured while experiencing her first menses in the countryside. “She didn’t even notice that her period had started until blood stains were dripping on her legs, and her mother had to start tearing her dress that she was putting on,” said Oben. “Every now and then she would tear off a piece and give her to use until they got here. Her first experience was in the bush, and her mother had to sacrifice the dress that she was wearing.”Cameroon’s ministry of social affairs reports that many girls do not understand what is happening when they start menstruating. They either go into hiding or start using traditional concoctions proposed by their peers to stop the flow. Mothers often do not discuss menstruation with their daughters.The absence of adequate sanitation facilities in schools and public spaces makes it very difficult for women and girls to manage their periods. Feka Parchibel is coordinator of the NGO Hope for the Vulnerables and Orphans. She says the government should assist young girls with menstrual kits every month. Her NGO distributed menstrual pads to poor children at school.”There are many more women and girls who need sanitary kits than the quantity we actually brought, and it is frustrating,” said Parchibel. “You see women who use rags, papers, who use just anything unhealthy to stop that blood flow at that particular moment. It has made women and girls lose their dignity. Our wish is for the government to subsidize the cost of these sanitary pads, why not make them free. If they [government] can give condoms for free why can’t they give sanitary pads, too, for free at least to young girls.”The government did not say if it will provide the kits free. But Stela Dopgima of Cameroon’s Youth and Family Empowerment Center says there is ongoing education against taboos. She says communities should stop thinking that menstruation is an impurity or a disease. She says communities should stop subjecting women and girls to religious, domestic or sexual prohibitions, which often lead to further isolation or stigmatization.
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SolarWinds Hackers Targeted 150 Organizations with Phishing, Microsoft Says
The state-backed Russian cyber spies behind the SolarWinds hacking campaign launched a targeted spear-phishing assault on U.S. and foreign government agencies and think tanks this week using an email marketing account of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Microsoft said.
The effort targeted about 3,000 email accounts at more than 150 different organizations, at least a quarter of them involved in international development, humanitarian and human rights work, Microsoft Vice President Tom Burt said in a blog post late Thursday.
It did not say what portion of the attempts may have led to successful intrusions.
The cybersecurity firm Volexity, which also tracked the campaign but has less visibility into email systems than Microsoft , said in a post that relatively low detection rates of the phishing emails suggest the attacker was “likely having some success in breaching targets.”
Burt said the campaign appeared to be a continuation of multiple efforts by the Russian hackers to “target government agencies involved in foreign policy as part of intelligence gathering efforts.” He said the targets spanned at least 24 countries.
The hackers gained access to USAID’s account at Constant Contact, an email marketing service, Microsoft said. The authentic-looking phishing emails dated May 25 purport to contain new information on 2020 election fraud claims and include a link to malware that allows the hackers to “achieve persistent access to compromised machines.”
Microsoft said in a separate blog post that the campaign is ongoing and evolved out of several waves of spear-phishing campaigns it first detected in January that escalated to the mass-mailings of this week.
While the SolarWinds campaign, which infiltrated dozens of private sector companies and think tanks as well as at least nine U.S. government agencies, was supremely stealthy and went on for most of 2020 before being detected in December by the cybersecurity firm FireEye, this campaign is what cybersecurity researchers call noisy. Easy to detect.
Microsoft noted the two mass distribution methods used: the SolarWinds hack exploited the supply chain of a trusted technology provider’s software updates; this campaign piggybacked on a mass email provider.
With both methods, the company said, the hackers undermine trust in the technology ecosystem.
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Tanzanian Muslims Fear Missing Hajj Due to Vaccination Delay
Saudi Arabia is requiring all pilgrims for the scaled-back, annual Hajj in July to be vaccinated against COVID-19. In Tanzania, where vaccinations have not yet begun, Muslims hoping to go to Mecca are urging authorities to start jabbing.Omar Aboubakar, like many other Muslims in Tanzania, wants to make the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. It’s an integral part of the Muslim faith, but for now only those immunized against COVID-19 can take part in this year’s Hajj.Aboubakar is worried because vaccinations in Tanzania have yet to be approved.“The time remaining is limited but still, we haven’t given up,” he said. “We expect our top leaders to check on the issue of vaccination carefully so we can accomplish this holy worship. We failed to go last year because of COVID-19, and if it continues till next year it means our worship has ended. This is the main pillar of our religion.”Until earlier this year, Tanzanian authorities had rejected COVID-19 vaccines. Then-President John Magufuli instead promoted false remedies for the disease.Soon after Magufuli’s death in March, his successor, Samia Hassan, formed a COVID-19 task force to advise her government on handling the infections.In its report two weeks ago, the committee declared the vaccines to be effective and recommended that travelers going abroad be among those to get their shots first.”The committee advises the government using its institutions and continues to move to allow free vaccines, using vaccine brands listed by the World Health Organization, because the shots are effective and safe since they are scientifically proved,” said Said Aboud, the committee chairperson.Last week, President Hassan said the government was checking to see if COVID-19 vaccines that are available in other countries can be ordered for Tanzanians.But with no vaccination campaign in sight, Muslim leaders see the chances of Tanzanians attending this year’s pilgrimage to be low at best.”I cannot say that we can’t accomplish Hajj worship, but the percentages seem to be very low to accomplish the worship this year,” Haidari Kambwili, the Hajj travelers coordinator with the National Muslim Council of Tanzania, said. “The remaining percentages only Allah will decide, because even if we get vaccinated as our leaders are struggling to accomplish — still, time is a challenge.”Meanwhile, COVID-19 has not stopped Tanzanians like Aboubakar from continuing to worship in mosques. But for now, his plan to join his fellow Muslims in Mecca for Hajj prayers remains up in the air.
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Facebook Won’t Remove Posts Claiming COVID-19 is Human-made
Facebook says it will no longer remove claims that COVID-19 is human-made or manufactured “in light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts.”There is rising pressure worldwide to investigate the origins of the pandemic, including the possibility that it came from a lab. Since the pandemic began, Facebook has been changing what it allows on the topic and what it bans. In February, it announced a host of new claims it would be prohibiting — including that COVID-19 was created in a Chinese lab. Other claims it added at the time included the false notion that vaccines are not effective or that they are toxic.Lisa Fazio, a professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, said the reversal shows the difficulty of fact-checking in general, particularly with something unprecedented like the coronavirus, when experts can disagree and change their minds with new evidence.“It’s one reason that content moderation shouldn’t be static, scientific consensus changes over time,” Fazio said. “It’s also a reminder to be humble and that for some questions the best current answer is “we don’t know yet” or “it’s possible, but experts think it’s unlikely.”Facebook’s reversal comes as President Joe Biden ordered U.S. intelligence officials to “redouble” their efforts to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, including any possibility the trail might lead to a Chinese laboratory. After months of minimizing these claims as a fringe theory, the Biden administration is joining worldwide pressure for China to be more open about the outbreak. It aims to head off GOP complaints that Biden has not been tough enough and to use the opportunity to press China on alleged obstruction.“We’re continuing to work with health experts to keep pace with the evolving nature of the pandemic and regularly update our policies as new facts and trends emerge,” said Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president of integrity, in a statement Wednesday.Facebook does not usually ban misinformation outright on its platform, instead adding fact-checks by outside parties, which includes The Associated Press, to debunked claims. The two exceptions have been around elections and COVID-19.
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Tanker’s Impossible Voyage Signals New Sanction Evasion Ploy
The Cyprus-flagged oil tanker Berlina was drifting near the Caribbean island of Dominica earlier this year when tracking technology showed it stopping in its tracks and in two minutes turning around 180 degrees.It was an amazingly quick pivot since the 274-meter ship needs roughly 10 times that amount of time to perform such a maneuver.Even more intriguing: Around the same time the Berlina was pinging its location at sea, it was physically spotted loading crude oil in nearby Venezuela despite U.S. sanctions against such trading.Meanwhile, nine other ships, some connected to the same Greece-based owner of the Berlina, were digitally monitored moving nearby at an identical speed and direction with sudden draft changes, indicating they had somehow been loaded full of crude though apparently out at sea.The Berlina’s impossible journey could represent the next frontier of how rogue states and their enablers manipulate GPS-like tracking systems to hide their movements while circumventing sanctions, maritime experts say.Evading detectionIn recent years, as the U.S. has expanded economic sanctions and tracking technology has become more widely used, companies have adopted a number of techniques to evade detection. Most involve a ship going dark, by turning off its mandatory automated identification system or by “spoofing” the identity and registration information of another ship, sometimes a sunken or scrapped vessel.Windward, a maritime intelligence agency whose data is used by the U.S. to investigate sanctions violations, carried out a detailed investigation into the Berlina. It considers the movements of the Berlina and the other ships to be one of the first instances of orchestrated manipulation in which vessels went dark for an extended period while off-ship agents used machines to hide their activities by making it appear they were transmitting their locations normally.Militaries around the world have been using the same electronic warfare technology for decades. But it is only now cropping up in commercial shipping, with serious national security, environmental and maritime safety implications.“We believe this is going to spread really fast because it’s so efficient and easy,” Matan Peled, co-founder of Windward, said in an interview. “And it’s not just a maritime challenge. Imagine what would happen if small planes started adopting this tactic to hide their true locations?”Under a United Nations maritime treaty, ships of over 300 tons have been required since 2004 to use the automated identification system to avoid collisions and assist rescues in the event of a spill or accident at sea. Tampering with its use is a major breach that can lead to consequences for a vessel and its owners.But the maritime safety mechanism has also become a powerful mechanism for tracking ships engaged in rogue activities like illegal fishing or transporting sanctioned crude oil to and from places under U.S. or international sanctions like Venezuela, Iran and North Korea.In the cat-and-mouse game that has ensued, the advent of digital ghosts leaving false tracks could give the bad actors the upper hand, said Russ Dallen, the Miami-based head of Caracas Capital Markets brokerage, who tracks maritime activity near Venezuela.“It’s pretty clear the bad guys will learn from these mistakes and next time will leave a digital trail that more closely resembles the real thing,” Dallen said. “The only way to verify its true movement will be to get a physical view of the ship, which is time consuming and expensive.”Manipulation or malfunction?The Berlina never reported a port call while floating in the Caribbean. Nonetheless, on March 5, the draft indicated by its identification system went from 9 meters to 17 meters, suggesting it had been loaded with oil.Was it manipulation or a malfunction?While the Berlina’s voyage remains something of a mystery, Vortexa, a London-based energy cargo tracker, determined the tanker had loaded at the Venezuelan port of Jose on March 2 and then headed toward Asia. Separately, Windward also confirmed the crude delivery through two sources.Two months later, on May 5, the Berlina discharged its crude in a ship-to-ship transfer to a floating storage vessel, the CS Innovation, according to Vortexa. The CS Innovation remains off the coast of Malaysia where the transfer took place and has undertaken several ship-to-ship transfers in the interim, making it nearly impossible to know where Venezuela’s oil will end up.Adding to suspicions, the Berlina and at least four of the nine other vessels involved in the Caribbean voyage earlier this year are connected to the same Greek company, according to Windward. And all 10 vessels switched flags — another common ploy used to make it harder to keep track of ships — to Cyprus in the four months prior to the manipulation of the fleet’s tracking information.The AP was unable to locate any contact information for the Berlina’s ship manager or owner, both of which are based in the port city of Pireaus, near Athens.Peled said the Berlina’s activities may never have been detected if not for a tip it received from an external source that it wouldn’t identify.But the know-how gained from the investigation has allowed it to identify other recent examples of location tampering, including one in January when a ship it did not identify was spotted loading Iranian crude at Kharg island while broadcasting its location out at sea somewhere else in the Persian Gulf.While the U.S. government has additional resources to ferret out such deceptive practices, doing so will require extra effort.“It suggests the length to which rogue actors are willing to go, to hide their activities,” said Marshall Billingslea, an assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing during the Trump administration and former deputy undersecretary of the Navy. “It’s a worrisome trend and given the huge volume of maritime traffic will introduce a lot more noise into the system.”
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Plague of Ravenous, Destructive Mice Tormenting Australians
At night, the floors of sheds vanish beneath carpets of scampering mice. Ceilings come alive with the sounds of scratching. One family blamed mice chewing electrical wires for their house burning down.Vast tracts of land in Australia’s New South Wales state are being threatened by a mouse plague that the state government describes as “absolutely unprecedented.” Just how many millions of rodents have infested the agricultural plains across the state is guesswork.”We’re at a critical point now where if we don’t significantly reduce the number of mice that are in plague proportions by spring, we are facing an absolute economic and social crisis in rural and regional New South Wales,” Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall said this month.Bruce Barnes said he is taking a gamble by planting crops on his family farm near the central New South Wales town of Bogan Gate.”We just sow and hope,” he said.The risk is that the mice will maintain their numbers through the Southern Hemisphere winter and devour the wheat, barley and canola before it can be harvested.NSW Farmers, the state’s top agricultural association, predicts the plague will wipe more than 1 billion Australian dollars ($775 million) from the value of the winter crop.The state government has ordered 5,000 liters of the banned poison Bromadiolone from India. The federal government regulator has yet to approve emergency applications to use the poison on the perimeters of crops. Critics fear the poison will kill not only mice but also animals that feed on them, including wedge-tail eagles and family pets.”We’re having to go down this path because we need something that is super strength, the equivalent of napalm to just blast these mice into oblivion,” Marshall said.The plague is a cruel blow to farmers in Australia’s most populous state who have been battered by fires, floods and pandemic disruptions in recent years, only to face the new scourge of the introduced house mouse, or Mus musculus.Hank, a working dog turned mouser, chases a mouse on a farm near Tottenham, Australia, on May 19, 2021.The same government-commissioned advisers who have helped farmers cope with the drought, fire and floods are returning to help people deal with the stresses of mice.The worst comes after dark, when millions of mice that had been hiding and dormant during the day become active.By day, the crisis is less apparent. Patches of road are dotted with squashed mice from the previous night, but birds soon take the carcasses away. Haystacks are disintegrating due to ravenous rodents that have burrowed deep inside. Upending a sheet of scrap metal lying in a paddock will send a dozen mice scurrying. The sidewalks are strewn with dead mice that have eaten poisonous bait.But a constant, both day and night, is the stench of mice urine and decaying flesh. The smell is people’s greatest gripe.”You deal with it all day. You’re out baiting, trying your best to manage the situation, then come home and just the stench of dead mice,” said Jason Conn, a fifth-generation farmer near Wellington in central New South Wales.”They’re in the roof cavity of your house. If your house is not well sealed, they’re in bed with you. People are getting bitten in bed,” Conn said. “It doesn’t relent, that’s for sure.”Colin Tink estimated he drowned 7,500 mice in a single night last week in a trap he set with a cattle feeding bowl full of water at his farm outside Dubbo.”I thought I might get a couple of hundred. I didn’t think I’d get 7,500,” Tink said.Barnes said mouse carcasses and excrement in roofs were polluting farmers’ water tanks.Mice scurry around stored grain on a farm near Tottenham, Australia, on May 19, 2021.”People are getting sick from the water,” he said.The mice are already in Barnes’ hay bales. He’s battling them with zinc phosphide baits, the only legal chemical control for mice used in broad-scale agriculture in Australia. He’s hoping that winter frosts will help contain the numbers.Farmers like Barnes endured four lean years of drought before 2020 brought a good season as well as the worst flooding that some parts of New South Wales have seen in at least 50 years. But the pandemic brought a labor drought. Fruit was left to rot on trees because foreign backpackers who provide the seasonal workforce were absent.Plagues seemingly appear from nowhere and often vanish just as fast.Disease and a shortage of food are thought to trigger a dramatic population crash as mice feed on themselves, devouring the sick, weak and their own offspring.Government researcher Steve Henry, whose agency is developing strategies to reduce the impact of mice on agriculture, said it is too early to predict what damage will occur by spring.He travels across the state holding community meetings, sometimes twice a day, to discuss the mice problem.”People are fatigued from dealing with the mice,” Henry said.
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Thousands evacuate Goma
Thousands left the Democratic Republic of Congo’s city of Goma. The compulsory evacuation orders came after authorities detected magma beneath the city and nearby lake and said a second volcanic eruption could occur at any time.
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Armenia Says Azerbaijan Captured Six Soldiers at Border
Azerbaijan captured Six Armenian soldiers Thursday, the latest in a series of escalating border incidents after last year’s war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. The United States called on both sides to resolve the situation “urgently and peacefully.”The clash came at a delicate time for acting Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who faces snap elections next month. The Armenian defense ministry said that its forces were carrying out engineering work in a border region when Azerbaijan’s army “surrounded and captured six servicemen.”Azerbaijan’s military, however, branded the Armenian soldiers as a “reconnaissance and sabotage group.”It said they had “tried to mine supply routes leading to Azerbaijan army positions” and “were surrounded, neutralized and taken prisoner.””The situation is tense and explosive,” Pashinyan said during his visit to the eastern Gegharkunik region, where the soldiers were captured.Speaking separately at a meeting of his security council, the prime minister suggested that international observers be deployed on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan.US, France express concernThe U.S. expressed concern about the escalating tension and called for the release of the six soldiers and for the two sides to return to the negotiating table.”We call on both sides to urgently and peacefully resolve this incident,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement. “We also continue to call on Azerbaijan to release immediately all prisoners of war and other detainees, and we remind Azerbaijan of its obligations under international humanitarian law to treat all detainees humanely.”Washington would consider any movements in the nondemarcated part of the border area as “provocative and unnecessary,” the statement said.France urges cautionIn France, the foreign ministry similarly urged both sides “to show the utmost restraint and to refrain from any provocation.”This was just the latest in a string of border incidents between the historic rivals stretching back over several months, and it further strained the cease-fire Russia brokered last year.Last year, the two ex-Soviet countries in the Caucasus region fought for six weeks for control of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian region in Azerbaijan that separatists had controlled for decades.Some 6,000 people were killed in the conflict, which ended after Moscow brokered an agreement between Yerevan and Baku that saw Armenia hand large sections of territory it had controlled for decades to Azerbaijan.Among the recaptured territories was Kelbajar district, which lies across the border from Gegharkunik, the site of the latest incident.The cease-fire, monitored by 2,000 Russian peacekeepers, has largely held, but tensions persist.Snap pollsA senior Armenian army representative said there were 1,000 Azerbaijani soldiers on Armenian soil near Gegharkunik.For now, he said, incidents were being resolved peacefully, but “if a decision is taken to use force, then they will be destroyed.”Azerbaijan said that Armenia had deployed tanks to the area.Armenia said one of its soldiers was killed earlier this week when shooting broke out with Azerbaijan’s forces, an incident Baku denied responsibility for.Earlier in May, Armenia accused Azerbaijan’s military of crossing its southern border to “lay siege” to a lake shared by the two countries.Elections aheadAnd all of this comes in the run-up to snap parliamentary polls in Armenia on June 20, which Pashinyan announced under pressure from opposition protesters.For months they have staged rallies demanding the prime minister’s resignation.They hold him accountable for what many in Armenia believe was a humiliating defeat at the hands of Azerbaijan’s army, and for agreeing to hand over swaths of territory to Azerbaijan.Pashinyan, 45, says he had no choice but to concede or see his country’s forces suffer even bigger losses. Fresh elections are the best way to end the postwar political stalemate, he says.Earlier this month, Pashinyan said Armenia and Azerbaijan were in Russian-mediated talks on the delimitation and demarcation of their shared borders.He also said the two governments could discuss territorial swaps.Russia’s role as the broker between the two countries has largely come at the expense of Western powers such as France and the United States. All three are part of a mediating group that had tried but failed for decades to find a lasting solution to the conflict.Ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan around the collapse of the Soviet Union in a conflict that claimed the lives of 30,000 people and displaced many more.
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Family of US Journalist Jailed in Myanmar Calls for His Safe Return
Myanmar’s military on Monday arrested American journalist Danny Fenster. VOA’s Esha Sarai speaks with his brother about Fenster’s work and the family’s campaign to bring him home. Produced by: Esha Sarai
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Uganda Sees Sharp Rise in COVID-19 Cases
Uganda is seeing a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases, forcing its health officials to take stern emergency measures. From 200 cases per day in April, the East African country is now recording over 1,000 cases per day amid a looming vaccine shortage.At the Ministry of Health, hundreds of people line up standing, others sitting, as the line snakes its way to the vaccination tent. Uganda’s COVID-19 cases stand at 44,594, with 361 deaths. Dr. Yonas Tegegn Woldemariam, the country’s representative at the World Health Organization, spells out the rate at which the coronavirus is spreading in Uganda. “On the week starting from 25 April, Uganda reported 256 cases. The week starting 2nd May, that number went up to 411. The week of the 9th of May, the number went to 475. And the week of the 16 May, the number has already reached 1,060,” he said. Kampala is among 10 districts that have recorded a high number of cases. Odoi Paul, 39, is among the many who thronged to the Ministry of Health on Thursday to get their first jab. “To make sure that I’m free from COVID-19. Like in India, people are dying, in USA. Like, that is why I say, let me also go and save my life before such a thing happens in our country,” said Paul. Dr. Henry Mwebesa, the director of health services, notes that it has taken the country less than 10 days to get to a full-blown pandemic. The most affected group is people between the ages of 20 and 39, and the number of severely and critically ill COVID-19 patients is higher than it was in the first wave. Dr. Mwebesa says officials are making tough decisions to ensure that people in densely populated areas such as Kampala get the vaccine. “To also note with concern that some districts, especially in the Eastern and Northern regions, have not performed as well. So, the strategic committee meeting of the Ministry of Health resolved that vaccines be withdrawn from the poorly performing districts, and that the exercise should commence 27th May, which is today,” he said. In March, Uganda received 964,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine from the COVAX facility, with 100,000 doses coming from India. Since March 10, about 550,000 people have been vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine. A second batch of vaccines was expected starting this month. But Dr. Woldemariam says that is not guaranteed. “The supply we were expecting in May hasn’t come, and it’s unlikely to come in June. So, we are working towards seeing where we can get an alternative supplier other than India. Globally, now there is a big effort for big countries which have excess to vaccines to donate, so, we are looking into whether we will benefit from that,” he said. To show the full extent of the second wave, tonight the three major local television stations in Uganda will anchor a joint news bulletin under the theme, Act or Perish.
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Cameroon Clears Abandoned Mental Health Patients from Streets
Authorities in Cameroon are clearing the streets in the capital, Yaounde, of more than 300 psychiatric patients whom officials say have been abandoned by family members. The central African state says stress from Boko Haram terrorism, a separatist crisis in its English-speaking western regions and the increase in consumption of hard drugs are responsible for growing numbers of such patients.Laure Mengueme is the director of mental health at Cameroon’s Ministry of Health. She speaks to a group of about 70 people at the central market in Yaounde on why psychiatric patients should not be left on the streets.Mengueme says she is making it clear that mentally ill patients should not be removed from the streets as refuse. She says local councils in Cameroon have social affairs services that will assist in the treatment of all abandoned mental health patients in the company of family members.Among those listening to Mengueme is 49-year-old secondary school teacher Theresia Mbiteh. Mbiteh says her 19-year-old son became violent in the English-speaking northwestern town of Bamenda in 2017. She says his son began taking illegal drugs when separatist fighters prohibited children from going to school.”I have done a lot, many people can testify. He escaped from here (Cameroon} and trekked to Nigeria,” said Mbiteh. “A person picked (found) him in Nigeria, called me one day after six weeks of his stay there and then told me. I had to borrow money to go collect him from Nigeria. When I brought him back here I thought things were going to be better, but nothing changed.”Mbiteh said she travelled from Bamenda to Yaounde when Cameroon state radio reported that the government was helping families take their loved ones off the streets.The health ministry reported that the number of abandoned psychiatric patients increased from 50 to more than 300 in Yaounde within two years. At least 2,700 patients are on the streets all over Cameroon with more than 400 in the commercial capital city Douala. Cameroon counted 1,300 such patients in its territory in 2019.Frankline Ngwen is supervisor of the mental health department of the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services. He says abuse and trauma from the various crises Cameroon faces has led to an increase in the number of psychiatric patients.”There are several reasons why people who are developing mental illnesses are increasing,” said Ngwen. “Some of them are very eminent including the sociopolitical crisis in the northwest region, the southwest region and the Boko Haram crisis in the north. This has given an opportunity for a lot of abuses, violence and trauma and these traumas can result to the development of mental illnesses. We also have schools where teenagers are using a lot of drugs and all these drugs are contributing to the development of mental illnesses.”Traditionally, many Cameroonians believe that mental health crises are divine punishment for wrongdoing. Some say witchcraft or spiritual possession are responsible for mental illness.Fonbe Hedwick runs Living Vine Mental Health Center in the English-speaking northwestern town of Bamenda. He is part of the campaign to remove mental patients from the streets. Fonbe says some patients are escaping from the homes of African traditional healers and Pentecostal pastors who abuse them, claiming that they are chasing evil spirits.”They should not be beaten. Patients with psychiatric conditions should not be tied up. Some kind of brutal force should not be meted on them,” said Fonbe. “We encourage families to avoid taking them to places where they think that they {pastors} will just pray for these patients and they get miracle healing or to traditional healers who will think that they will do some concoctions and these patients will get well. This is our message to all the families and all the communities.”Fonbe said with the arrival of the coronavirus in Cameroon in March 2020, many families have lacked the resources to care for psychiatric patients at home, putting them on the streets.The health ministry is asking family members to take relatives with mental health problems to hospitals for treatment.
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Are UFOs a Threat? Congress Awaits Pentagon Report
Videos of Navy pilots pursuing flying objects with amazing capabilities have struck a nerve in Washington. Matt Dibble looks into the latest UFO mystery.
Producer: Matt Dibble
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Oil Giants Face Pressure to Act on Climate Change
Some of the world’s biggest oil companies are under pressure to take more action to address climate change.ExxonMobil shareholders Wednesday elected at least two members proposed by hedge fund Engine No. 1 to serve on the company’s 12-member board of directors.The fund said in a statement earlier this week that the board needed “directors with experience in successful and profitable energy industry transformations who can help turn aspirations of addressing the risks of climate change into a long-term business plan, not talking points.”ExxonMobil shareholders also voted in favor of a proposal requiring the company to report on its climate change lobbying activities.”We’ve heard from shareholders about their desire to catalyze further progress at ExxonMobil and we are well prepared to deliver,” chief executive Darren Woods said Wednesday.Also Wednesday, Chevron shareholders approved a proposal to cut Scope 3 emissions, which are those generated by the use of a company’s products.The proposal did not set specific targets for how much to cut emissions or any deadline.Wednesday also brought a ruling from a Dutch court ordering Royal Dutch Shell to cut its carbon emissions by a net 45% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels.Seven environmental groups filed the lawsuit against Royal Dutch Shell arguing the company was in breach of its obligation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.In her decision, Hague District Court Judge Larissa Alwin ruled that since Royal Dutch Shell currently has a plan to reduce emissions and was still developing it, it is not currently in breach of its obligation, as the groups argued.But the judge said a violation of that obligation is imminent, as the company’s policy “is not concrete, has many caveats and is based on monitoring social developments rather than the company’s own responsibility for achieving a carbon dioxide reduction.”
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Are UFOs a Threat? Pentagon Due to Deliver Report to Congress
Videos of Navy pilots pursuing flying objects with amazing capabilities have struck a nerve in Washington. Matt Dibble looks into the latest UFO mystery.
Producer: Matt Dibble
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