The world’s biggest and most powerful space telescope found a parking space. Plus, a lottery winner can’t claim his prize, and a volcanic eruption may offer clues on the formation of planets. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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Month: January 2022
Kenyan Pastoral Communities Embrace Fishing
Kenya’s nomadic herders are among those suffering the most from recurring drought that kills the livestock they depend on. To make them less dependent on rain, aid programs are teaching Kenya’s herders how to farm fish and keep bees. Brenda Mulinya reports from Isiolo, Kenya.
Camera: Amos Wangwa Produced by: Amos Wangwa/Henry Hernandez
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Study: Gas Stoves Worse for Climate Than Previously Thought
Gas stoves are contributing more to global warming than previously thought because of constant tiny methane leaks while they’re off, a new study found.
The same study that tested emissions around stoves in homes raised new concerns about indoor air quality and health because of levels of nitrogen oxides measured.
Even when they are not running, U.S. gas stoves are putting 2.6 million tons (2.4 million metric tons) of methane — in carbon dioxide equivalent units — into the air each year, a team of California researchers found in a study published in Thursday’s journal Environmental Science & Technology. That’s equivalent to the annual amount of greenhouse gases from 500,000 cars or what the United States puts into the air every three-and-a-half hours.
“They’re constantly bleeding a little bit of methane into the atmosphere all the time,” said the study’s co-author Rob Jackson, a Stanford University climate scientist.
That methane is on top of the 6.8 million tons (6.2 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide that gas stoves emit into the air when they are in use and the gas is burned, the study said. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is dozens of times more potent than carbon dioxide but doesn’t stay in the atmosphere nearly as long and isn’t as plentiful in the air.
The researchers examined 53 home kitchens in California — many in bed and breakfasts they rented. They sealed most of the rooms in plastic tarps and then measured emissions when the stoves were working and when they were not. And what was surprising was that three-quarters of the methane released happened while the stoves were off, Jackson said. Those are emissions releases that the government doesn’t account for, he said.
“That’s a big deal because we’re trying to really reduce our carbon footprint and we claim that gas is cleaner than coal, which it is,” said study lead author Eric Lebel, a scientist at PSE Healthy Energy, an Oakland nonprofit. But he said much of the benefit disappears when leaks are taken into account.
Many communities have bans on gas stove use in future new construction that will take effect in future years, including New York City and the Bay Area cities of San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and Berkeley, Jackson said.
“People can already choose electric appliances if they want,” said Frank Maisano, a Washington policy and public relations expert who represents gas and appliance interests. “People just like gas appliances because they perform better, especially in colder climates.”
“Natural gas appliances are generally more energy- and cost-effective than their electric counterparts,” Maisano said.
Jackson estimated that when all natural gas use and extraction is taken into account, about 100 million tons (91 million metric tons) of gas leaks into the atmosphere. And the couple million tons from gas stoves “is meaningful. That’s a substantial part and it’s a part that we haven’t included accurately in the past.”
The leakage finding is “a very important takeaway” and fits with other work that found there are often big leaks that account for much of the emissions, said Zachary Merrin, a research engineer with the Illinois Applied Research Institute’s Indoor Climate Research & Training group.
Merrin, who wasn’t part of the study, said the emission of un-combusted methane is “clearly bad. From an emissions standpoint, cooking directly with gas is better than using a fossil fuel powered electric stove but worse than using a solar powered electric stove.”
The methane leak isn’t dangerous to human health or as a possible explosive, Jackson said. But when conducting the tests, researchers found high levels of nitrogen oxides, greater than 100 parts per billion. Jackson said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t have indoor air quality standards for that gas, but the measurements they took exceed its outdoor air quality standards. While methane doesn’t include nitrogen, the nitrogen oxides are byproducts of the combustion in natural gas ovens, he said.
Maisano said people should always use hood ranges and make sure they have proper ventilation. Jackson, who has a gas stove that he plans to replace, said he never used ventilation before this study, but that he now does so every time.
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6 Cancer Patients Sue Utility Over Fukushima Radiation
Six people who were children living in Fukushima at the time of the 2011 nuclear disaster and have since developed thyroid cancer filed a lawsuit Thursday demanding a utility pay compensation for their illnesses, which they say were triggered by massive radiation spewed from the Fukushima nuclear plant.
The people, now aged 17-27 and living in and outside of Fukushima, demand the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings pay a total of 616 million yen ($5.4 million) in compensation.
One of the plaintiffs, identified only as a woman in her 20s, said she has had to prioritize her health over her career and has seen prejudice against thyroid cancer patients.
“But I decided to come forward and tell the truth in hopes of improving the situation for nearly 300 other people also suffering like us,” she said.
Their lawyers said it is the first group lawsuit in Japan filed by Fukushima residents over health problems linked to the nuclear disaster 11 years ago.
In a news conference after filing their lawsuit at the Tokyo District Court, a plaintiff and the mother of another plaintiff said they hoped the court would establish a correlation between the cancer and radiation leaked from the plant. An expert panel commissioned by the Fukushima prefectural government has so far ruled out the alleged cause.
The plaintiffs, who were 6 to 16 years old at the time of the meltdown, were diagnosed with thyroid cancer between 2012 and 2018, their lawyers said. Four of them had their thyroid fully removed and need to take lifetime hormonal treatment. One of them says the cancer has since spread elsewhere. The other two had part of their thyroid removed.
The plaintiffs are from different parts of Fukushima, including Aizu, about 120 kilometers (72 miles) west of the plant, and some of them have since moved to the Tokyo area.
More than 290 people have been diagnosed with or are suspected of having thyroid cancer, including 266 found as part of the Fukushima prefectural panel’s survey of some 380,000 residents aged 18 or younger at the time of the disaster.
The occurrence rate of 77 per 100,000 people is significantly higher than the usual 1-2 per million, their lawyers say.
Prefectural officials and experts have said the high detection rate in Fukushima is due to overdiagnosis in many cases, which might have led to unnecessary treatment or surgery. Some also call for an end to the blanket surveys.
Kenichi Ido, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, said his client’s cancer has progressed, that none of the cases involve overdiagnosis and that TEPCO should be held accountable for radiation exposure unless the company can prove otherwise.
The government at the time of the accident was slow in its emergency response, and evacuation in many places was delayed due to a lack of disclosure about what was happening at the plant. Residents trying to flee in their cars clogged roads and were stranded for hours outside while radiation leaked from the damaged reactors. Some residents headed to evacuation centers in the direction of the radiation flow.
In a trial seeking criminal responsibility of former TEPCO executives, the Tokyo District Court in 2019 found three top officials not guilty, saying they could not have foreseen the disaster. The case has been appealed to a high court.
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US Economy Grew by Robust 5.7% in 2021
The U.S. economy advanced by 5.7% in 2021, the fastest full-year gain since 1984, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
The sharp growth in the world’s biggest economy showed its resiliency, even as the United States struggled to cope with two new coronavirus variants that hobbled some industries, caused supply chain issues for consumer goods that at times left store shelves empty, and led to a 7% year-over-year surge in consumer prices that was the highest in four decades.
But for the year, a record 6.4 million jobs were created and most of the jobs lost at the outset of the pandemic in early 2020 have been recovered.
Analysts say the economic growth may have slowed in January because of the omicron variant, as thousands of workers called in sick, often canceling airline flights, curbing business activity and again limiting in-class instruction at some schools and universities.
But the government said the overall economic growth was still evident in the October-to-December quarter, with a 6.9% annualized advance, three times the 2.3% pace of the July-through-September period.
U.S. President Joe Biden, with his job approval ratings sinking, chiefly because of Americans’ weariness over the ongoing pandemic and higher consumer prices, boasted about the economic report.
“For the first time in 20 years,” he said in a statement, “our economy grew faster than China’s. This is no accident. My economic strategy is creating good jobs for Americans, rebuilding our manufacturing, and strengthening our supply chains here at home to help make our companies more competitive.”
“Americans are dreaming again — believing in themselves and America,” he said.
The country’s robust economy pushed Federal Reserve policymakers on Wednesday to announce they could boost their benchmark interest rate as early as March after keeping it near zero percent since the coronavirus first swept into the United States in March 2020. The Fed could increase the rate, which has a broad effect on consumer and business borrowing costs, several more times this year.
Meanwhile, the Labor Department reported Thursday that 260,000 unemployed U.S. workers made first-time claims for jobless compensation last week, down 30,000 from the revised figure of the week before.
The latest total is in line with the 256,000 figure recorded in mid-March 2020, just before the coronavirus wreaked havoc on U.S. economic activity and businesses started laying off workers by the hundreds of thousands.
In recent weeks, the U.S. has been recording 600,000 to 750,000 or more new cases of the coronavirus every day, largely because of the highly transmissible omicron variant.
For the most part, however, employers have been retaining their workers and searching for more as the United States continues its rapid economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The country’s unemployment rate dropped in December to 3.9%, not far above the five-decade low of 3.5% recorded before the pandemic took hold.
Many employers are looking for more workers, despite about 6.9 million workers remaining unemployed in the United States.
At the end of November, there were 10.4 million job openings in the U.S., but the skills of available workers often do not match what employers want, or the job openings are not where the unemployed live. In addition, many of the available jobs are low-wage service positions that the jobless are shunning.
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Nigerian Authorities Raise Concerns Over Low Life Expectancy
Nigerian health authorities say the country’s life expectancy is among the worst in the world, with influenza and pneumonia leading causes of death. In southern Nigeria’s Cross River state, severe air pollution is increasing the cases of respiratory diseases.
Port Harcourt resident David Tolu-Adamu knows. Before leaving for work each day, he dons his face mask.
Tolu-Adamu says it’s a measure he has been taking since long before the coronavirus pandemic to filter out the sooty air.
“Constantly on a daily basis, year in year out, we have issues with black soot,” he says. “We breathe in this harmful substance in our day in, day out, in our sleep, while we work, when we exercise.”
Wearing a face mask is a common practice for many in the oil-rich city polluted by the activities of illegal oil refineries, flaring gas and the burning of garbage and tires. The pollution generated by soot escalated in 2016.
Health authorities say the soot is increasing respiratory ailments in the state and that some 23,000 people have been affected in the last five years.
This month, state authorities began addressing the problem in the affected areas by stopping and criminalizing the illegal refinery practices, says a local government head, Samuel Nwanosike.
“If the actions were not affecting our health, then we wouldn’t bother,” he says. “We are the ones here, we are the ones dying, we’re the ones feeling the pain. I am here every day in Ikwerre local government (area), sometimes I open my door, everywhere is turned dark; meanwhile there’s supposed to be sunshine.”
Health authorities say the country’s life expectancy of 54 years of age ranks among the five lowest in the world.
Respiratory illnesses such as influenza and pneumonia are leading causes of death. Globally, almost 300,000 people died from these ailments in 2018, according to World Health Organization estimates cited by the group World Life Expectancy.
Rivers State authorities blame soot pollution for making the problem worse. Since the start of this year, they have cracked down on illegal refinery operators, arresting more than 20 and shutting down many bases.
Critics accuse state authorities of not doing enough to curb pollution.
“The government is only interested in the proceeds of oil and gas, but they are not interested in the people; they’re not interested in the environment,” says Ibiosiya Sukubo, a local chief in Port Harcourt. “It has put our youths into the creeks, to the breaking of pipes and creating artisanal refineries, forgetting the additional health hazards and implications. We are just victims of circumstance.”
For now, Rivers State authorities say they will continue their crackdown on illegal refineries while looking for other ways to keep residents safe from the soot.
Fighting Taliban and Mistrust, Pakistan Marks One Year Polio-Free
Bathed in crisp morning light, Sidra Hussain grips a cooler stacked with glistening vials of polio vaccine in northwest Pakistan.
Watching over Hussain and her partner, a policeman unslings his rifle and eyes the horizon.
In concert they begin their task — going door-to-door on the outskirts of Mardan city, dripping bitter doses of rose-colored medicine into infants’ mouths on the eve of a major milestone for the nation’s anti-polio drive.
The last infection of the wild poliovirus was recorded on January 27, 2021, according to officials, and Friday marks the first time in Pakistan’s history that a year has passed with no new cases.
To formally eradicate the disease, a nation must be polio-free for three consecutive years — but even 12 months is a long time in a country where vaccination teams are in the crosshairs of a simmering insurgency.
Since the Taliban takeover of neighboring Afghanistan, the Pakistan version of the movement has become emboldened and its fighters frequently target polio teams.
“Life or death is in God’s hands,” Hussain told AFP this week, amid a patchwork of high-walled compounds in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
“We have to come,” she said defiantly. “We can’t just turn back because it’s difficult.”
Thriving in uncertainty
Nigeria officially eradicated wild polio in 2020, leaving Pakistan and Afghanistan as the only countries where the disease — which causes crippling paralysis — is still endemic.
Spread through faeces and saliva, the virus has historically thrived in the blurred borderlands between the South Asian nations, where state infrastructure is weak, and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have carved out a home.
A separate group sharing common heritage with the Afghan Taliban, the TTP was founded in 2007 and once held sway over large swathes of the restive tribal tracts of Pakistan.
In 2014 it was largely ousted by an army offensive, its fighters retreating across the porous border with Afghanistan.
But last year overall militant attacks surged by 56 per cent according to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, reversing a six-year downward trend.
The largest number of assaults came in August, coinciding with the Taliban takeover of Kabul.
Pakistan’s newspapers are regularly peppered with stories of police slain as they guard polio teams — and just this week a constable was gunned down in Kohat — 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of Mardan.
Pakistani media has reported as many as 70 polio workers killed in militant attacks since 2012 — mostly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Still, a TTP spokesman told AFP it “never attacked any polio workers,” and that security forces were their target.
“They will be targeted wherever they perform their duties,” he said Mardan deputy commissioner Habib Ullah Arif admits polio teams are “a very soft target” but says the fight to eradicate the disease is entwined with the security threat.
“There is only one concept: we are going to defeat polio, we are going to defeat militancy,” he pledged.
Vaccine skepticism
Pakistan anti-polio drives have been running since 1994, with up to 260,000 vaccinators staging regular waves of regional inoculation campaigns.
But on the fringes of the country, the teams often face skepticism.
“In certain areas of Pakistan, it was considered as a Western conspiracy,” explained Shahzad Baig — head of the national polio eradication program.
The theories ranged wildly: polio teams are spies, the vaccines cause infertility, or contain pig fat forbidden by Islam.
The spy theory gained currency with the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, whose hideaway in Abbottabad was revealed to the United States — unwittingly or otherwise — by a vaccine program run by a Pakistani doctor.
“It’s a complex situation,” said Baig. “It’s socio-economical, it’s political.”
The porous border with Afghanistan — a strategic crutch for the TTP — can also keep polio circulating.
“For the virus, Pakistan and Afghanistan were one country,” said Baig.
In Mardan, 10 teams — each comprising two women and an armed police guard — fan out across the city’s suburbs as morning turns to afternoon.
The teams chalk dates on the homes they visit and smear children’s fingers with indelible ink to mark those already inoculated.
On Monday they delivered dozens more doses to add to the nationwide tally.
“We have the fear in mind, but we have to be active to serve our nation,” said polio worker Zeb-un-Nissa.
“We have to eradicate this disease.”
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Anticipated US Interest Hikes Expected to Reverberate Globally
Wednesday’s signal from the U.S. Federal Reserve on impending interest rate increases is expected to have ramifications beyond America’s shores.
The Fed’s Open Market Committee announced it was keeping, for now, the target range for a key interest rate at near zero but cautioned that with inflation well above 2% and a strong labor market, it expected “it will soon be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate.”
The federal funds rate is the interest rate commercial banks charge each other for overnight loans of their excess reserves.
“The committee is of a mind to raise rates at the March meeting,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters Wednesday. “We have our eyes on risks around the world, but the economy should hold up.”
As the dollar serves as the primary international reserve currency, a U.S. interest rate hike would pressure central banks of other countries to also raise their rates for those who want to borrow money.
“The rest of the world has a lot of dollar debt, and even if their debt is in local currencies, their central banks will often have to raise interest rates to offset the U.S. rate increases to try to maintain some currency stability,” said Gerard DiPippo, senior fellow with the economics program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Raising interest rates is aimed at stifling consumer demand to address all of this money that’s sloshing around in our economy, and that’s going to affect consumers here, as well as producers of goods and other countries that rely on the U.S. market,” said Sarah Anderson, global economy project director at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Inflation ‘transmitted through trade’
Inflation in the United States is at a 40-year high amid surging consumer demand for goods, a strengthening domestic job market and pandemic-caused supply chain disruptions, including for critical semiconductors.
“The price of U.S. exports increased by more than the price of U.S. imports last year, so in a sense, the U.S. is exporting inflation because the cost of producing things in the U.S. has increased faster than the imports going into it from overseas. So, the inflation can be transmitted through trade,” DiPippo told VOA.
Some economists and policy analysts see the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden confusing structural and cyclical economic matters as it struggles to tame inflation.
“The cyclical phenomenon — inflation — over the next year or so, really only the Fed has the tools to deal with that,” DiPippo said. “Even if the Biden administration is able to increase subsidies to produce things in the United States or increase competition through regulation, those things take time. And we’re talking about inflation over the next year or two, not over the next five years. So, there’s a mismatch.”
The White House has repeatedly said that it is prioritizing lowering prices to help American households and that the best way to accomplish it is through increased competition.
“Competition results in lower prices for families. Competition results in fair wages for workers. And as you all know, competition encourages companies to innovate,” Biden said on Monday during a meeting of the White House Competition Council.
Prices have been surging in the United States and other countries since last year amid serious shortages of workers and the goods they produce. That has the International Monetary Fund predicting slower growth and faster inflation for the world’s biggest economies.
“People have shifted from spending money on services, like going out to restaurants and theaters, during the pandemic to buying more stuff,” Anderson told VOA. That has put more pressure on manufacturers, especially in countries such as China and Vietnam, which are having difficulty keeping pace with demand because so many workers have been sidelined by the pandemic.
“We can raise interest rates, but I don’t think the problem is going to go away until we end the pandemic,” Anderson added.
China’s “No-COVID policy may cause more lockdowns,” exacerbating the supply chain woes, Powell, the Fed chair, warned on Wednesday. “There’s plenty of risk out there.”
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Only 14 Cases of Guinea Worm Infection Reported Globally in 2021
The Atlanta-based Carter Center is making dramatic progress in the eradication of Guinea worm disease. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports that if the remaining endemic countries in Africa – Chad, South Sudan, Mali, Ethiopia and border areas of Cameroon – rid the parasite completely, it would become the first disease in human history eradicated through prevention and not vaccination
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WTO: China Can Place Duties on $645 Million in US Imports
The World Trade Organization on Wednesday handed a fresh victory to China, permitting it to place duties on $645 million worth of U.S. imports per year, in a long-running anti-dumping dispute with Washington.
The United States is unable to appeal the decision.
“The deeply disappointing decision today by the WTO arbitrator reflects erroneous Appellate Body interpretations that damage the ability of WTO members to defend our workers and businesses from China’s trade-distorting subsidies,” said Adam Hodge, a spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
“Today’s decision reinforces the need to reform WTO rules and dispute settlement, which have been used to shield China’s non-market economic practices and undermine fair, market-oriented competition.”
The WTO green light does not mean China will automatically impose the tariffs, in whole or in part, on U.S. imports.
The figure was revealed in an 87-page decision by a WTO arbitrator on the level of countermeasures Beijing could request in its dispute with Washington regarding US countervailing duties (CVD) on certain Chinese products.
The dispute stretches all the way back to 2012, when the WTO set up a panel of experts to try to settle a complaint filed by China over what it said were unfair duties imposed by the United States.
Washington had justified the additional tariffs on products ranging from paper to tires and solar panels, arguing they were being dumped on the market to help Chinese companies grab business.
The WTO Dispute Settlement Body ruled in China’s favor, and the ruling was upheld by its appeals judges in 2014, paving the way for China to retaliate.
Beijing initially asked to be permitted to place tariffs on $2.4 billion in U.S. products each year, but then scaled back its demand to $788.75 million.
The United States had argued that the appropriate level should not exceed $106 million per year.
The anti-dumping duties are permitted under international trade rules as long as they adhere to strict conditions, and disputes over their use are often brought before the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body.
Wednesday’s decision marks the second time the WTO has allowed China to retaliate for U.S. anti-dumping duties deemed to be in violation of international trade rules.
In November 2019, a WTO arbitrator permitted China to add duties on up to $3.6 billion worth of U.S. imports, in a separate case.
So far, China has not notified the WTO that it has implemented the approved retaliatory tariffs from that case.
Washington has long complained about the WTO dispute settlement system, and especially its appeals court, claiming unfair treatment.
Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump brought the system to a grinding halt in December 2019 by blocking the appointment of new judges to the Appellate Body.
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US Warns of Risks of Doing Business in Myanmar
The United States issued an advisory Wednesday warning of the increased risk of conducting business in Myanmar nearly a year after a military coup in the Southeast Asian country, which is also known as Burma.
The advisory from the U.S. State Department warned it was especially risky for “individuals, businesses and financial institutions and other persons” to be associated with business activity in Myanmar “that could benefit the Burmese military regime.”
The advisory cited the possibility of exposure to illegal financial and reputational risks by doing business there, and using supply chains controlled by the military.
“The coup and subsequent abuses committed by the military have fundamentally changed the direction of the economic and business environment in Burma,” the advisory said.
Former de factor leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) led Myanmar since its first open democratic election in 2015, but Myanmar’s military contested the November 2020 election results, claiming widespread electoral fraud, largely without evidence.
The military removed the NLD government in a coup on Feb. 1, 2021, detaining Suu Kyi and President Win Myint.
Since then, the military government has used deadly force in clampdowns on protests while escalating efforts to neutralize ethnic minority armies and newly formed militias allied with the NLD government. Wednesday’s advisory said the military “has killed more than 1,400 innocent people” since its takeover.
The advisory said state-owned enterprises were of greatest concern, as well as the gems and precious metals, real estate, construction and defense industries, noting that they have been identified as providing economic resources for the junta.
The advisory was issued after oil giants Chevron Corporation and TotalEnergies said last week the worsening humanitarian situation prompted them to withdraw from the country, where they were working together on a major gas project.
Global Corruption on the Rise Amid ‘Democratic Decline’
The fight against corruption has stagnated over the past decade amid human rights abuses and democratic declines in all regions of the world, according to an analysis by Transparency International.
The organization’s Corruption Perception Index ranks 180 countries by perceived levels of public sector corruption using a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean), using data from dozens of sources, including the World Bank.
Stagnation
The 2021 report shows that in 86% of countries, there has been little or no improvement over the past decade.
“Out of the 180 countries we have in the index, 134 have stayed more or less where they were in 2012,” said Roberto Kukutschka, a research coordinator at Transparency International who helped compile the report.
“We only see some significant improvement in 25 of the countries around the world. At the same time, however, we see that 23 countries have declined. And we see this … across all the regions in the world. The only place where we do not see any significant improvement, however, is in the Middle East and North Africa,” Kukutschka told VOA.
The top countries are Denmark, Finland and New Zealand, which all score 88 out of 100 on the index.
Democratic declines
Several Western democracies have slipped in the rankings, including the United States, Canada, and Australia.
“There is something happening [in] the countries that were formerly at the top of the index,” Kukutschka said. “So when we look at countries like Canada, the United States or Australia — [they] used to be high-fliers in our index and were always promoting the fight against corruption, not only in their countries, but also abroad — are starting … to slide down the index.
“This is a wake-up call for many of the countries at the top of the index,” he added. “They need to take care of their institutions; they need to pay attention to the issue of corruption, because I think it is much harder to build back what you lost than to preserve what you have and improve from there.”
Press freedom
“We have also had the spread of disinformation and fake news, which weakened, I think, the credibility of one of the most important watchdogs for anti-corruption, which is the media and the press,” Kukutschka told VOA.
Some European Union member states have also fallen sharply on the corruption index over the past 10 years, including Poland and Hungary.
“We have seen a clampdown on press freedom,” Kukutschka said. “We have seen also a clampdown on academic freedom, even with some universities having to leave the country.”
Conflict
Somalia, Syria and South Sudan — countries riven by years of conflict — remain at the bottom of the index. Twenty-seven nations are at historic lows on the corruption scale, including Cyprus, Lebanon and Honduras.
Perceived corruption in Mali has increased following successive military coups. The Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte has seen a big increase in corruption alongside a crackdown on freedom of expression. Similarly, perceived corruption in Venezuela has sharply increased under President Nicolas Maduro.
Most Improved
There are notable improvements in the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia, and especially in Armenia, says Kukutschka. “The old government was ousted by civil protests a few years ago, and now we have a more reformist government that is really committing to the fight against corruption.”
Transparency International identified a clear pattern in the data: the link between anti-corruption and democracy.
“Complacency in fighting corruption exacerbates human rights abuses and undermines democracy, setting off a vicious spiral,” the report says. “As these rights and freedoms erode and democracy declines, authoritarianism takes its place, contributing to even higher levels of corruption.”
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California Hotels Use Robots to Do Service Jobs
The current difficulty in filling many service jobs in the U.S. is leaving hotels scrambling to provide room service. But with a bit of ingenuity and a little high-tech help some American hotels are finding a way. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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Nigerian Language Advocates Seek Inclusion of African Languages in Tech Devices
Voice-activated virtual assistant technologies, such as Siri and Alexa, are becoming increasingly common around the world, but in Africa, with its many languages, most people are at a digital disadvantage. To address the problem, some African researchers are creating translation tools to recognize and promote indigenous languages, such as Yoruba.
Yoruba language teacher Oluwafemi Awosanya resumes a day’s classes with his students. He has been teaching the language for 10 years, but says he often struggles to migrate his class modules to an online students’ blogsite he created because there is no speech recognition technology for Yoruba.
“Yoruba language is a language that has to do with signs at the top, so I need to go (the) extra mile. When typing my notes, I have to first type on Microsoft Word and even when I type on Microsoft Word it gives me best highlighting, like your words are not correct,” Awosanya said.
Awosanya spends several hours manually editing and correcting his notes before uploading them to his blog.
He says despite technological advances in Africa, languages like Yoruba, one of the most commonly spoken in Nigeria, remain neglected, affecting his students.
“It limits knowledge. There are things you wish you want to educate the children on, things you want to exhibit in the classes…” Awosanya said.
More than 2,000 distinct languages are spoken in Africa. Researchers say two-thirds of the native speakers miss out on emerging technologies due to language limitations in the tech world.
Nigerian writer and language advocate Kola Tubosun says the issue threatens Africa’s technological future. He has since been trying to promote inclusivity for his native Yoruba tongue.
He created an online Yoruba dictionary as well as a text-to-speech machine that translates English to Yoruba. He said the initiative was partly inspired by his grandfather, who could not read or write in English.
“If a language doesn’t exist in the technology space, it is almost as if it doesn’t exist at all. That is the way the world is structured today and in that you spend all your time online every day and the only language you encounter is English, Spanish or Mandarin or whatever else, then it tends to define the way you interact with the world. And over time you tend to lose either the interest in your own language or your competence [competency in that language],” Tubosun said.
Tubosun, who advocates for including African languages in technology, says the tech giants are starting to pay attention even though the gap remains very wide.
“There are lots of obstacles. Some languages are not written down at all; some don’t have scripts. Some have scripts but don’t have so many people using the languages or writing them in education or using them in daily conversations,” Tubosun said.
Language experts say it will take a long time before African languages are widely adopted in voice-driven technology.
In the meantime, researchers like Tubosun and Awosanya will be working to adapt the Yoruba language for technology users.
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Nigerian Language Advocates Call for Including African Languages in High Tech Devices
Voice activated virtual assistant technologies, such as Siri and Alexa, are becoming increasingly common around the world but in Africa, with its many languages, most people are at a digital disadvantage. To address the problem, some African researchers are creating translation tools to recognize and promote indigenous languages, such as Yoruba. Timothy Obiezu in Abuja has details.
Camera: Emeka Gibson
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Solar-Powered Oxygen Saving the Lives of Somali Children
The installation of a solar-powered medical oxygen system at a hospital in central Somalia is proving effective in saving lives, Somali and World Health Organization doctors said.
The innovative solar oxygen system, the first of its kind in Somalia, was installed at Hanaano hospital, in the central town of Dhusamareb a year ago. Doctors say the system is having an impact and helping save the lives of very young patients.
“This innovation is giving us promise and hopes,” says Dr. Mamunur Rahman Malik, WHO Somalia Representative.
Malik says 171 patients received oxygen at the hospital from the solar-powered system from February to October last year. Of these 163 patients (95.3%) fully recovered and were discharged from the hospital. Only three patients died, and five other patients were referred to other hospitals.
Malik said every year some 15,000 to 20,000 deaths occur in Somalia among children under five years of age due to pneumonia. He says pneumonia is the deadliest disease among children under the age of five in the country. Until now, health authorities had not had access to an intervention that could reduce deaths from childhood pneumonia.
Dr. Mohamed Abdi, the director of Hanaano hospital, said the innovation is making a difference.
“It has helped a lot, it has saved more than a hundred people who received the service,” he told VOA Somali.
“It was a problem for the children under one year and the children who are born six months to get enough oxygen. Now we are not worried about oxygen availability if the electricity goes out because there are the oxygen concentrators.”
Abdi said it was difficult for doctors to save the lives of children born prematurely at the hospital before the installation of the system. The new system helps maintain high oxygen saturation levels of patients.
Abdiaziz Omar Abdi was a child admitted to the hospital on January 16 with severe pneumonia and was struggling to breathe normally. The oxygen rate in his body had dropped to 60%, Abdi said.
Doctors immediately put him on oxygen along with ampicillin and dexamethasone medications. When discharged three days later, he was breathing normally. His oxygen was up to 90%.
“I came because my child was unwell, he was not breathing properly, he was not breastfeeding,” says relieved mother Fadumo Ahmed Ali.
“Now he is breastfeeding. He is feeling well.”
Abdiaziz received the treatment at no cost to his family.
Malik said the oxygen is being used to treat a wide range of medical conditions — asphyxia, pneumonia, injuries, trauma, and road traffic accidents.
“We have seen in other countries that use of solar-powered medical oxygen (if applied in a timely manner) can save up to 35% of deaths from childhood pneumonia,” he said.
Malik said if this innovation is used widely in Somalia, it can save the lives of at least 7,000 children who die “needlessly” due to pneumonia.
The initiative to install bio-medical equipment that uses solar energy at Hanaano hospital emerged during the height of COVID-19 in 2020, at a time when people were dying due to respiratory problems. Hospitals were unable to keep up with the amount of patients and the cost of a cylinder of oxygen rose to between $400 to $600.
“At the beginning of this pandemic we have seen that only 20% of hospitals or health facilities in Somalia had access to limited, very limited supply of oxygen,” Malik said.
“If you look at the current situation, as of today Somalia needs close to 3,000 or 4000 cubic meters of oxygen per day. So, oxygen was the biggest need in all the hospitals.”
Doctors said the solar system can also provide electricity to hospitals that need it. Solar power can also help provide energy for refrigeration needed to store vaccines or drugs at a low temperature, doctors said.
This report originated in VOA Somali Service’s “Investigative Dossier” program.
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IMF Urges El Salvador to Remove Bitcoin’s Legal Tender Status
The International Monetary Fund’s board “urged” El Salvador to do away with its move to make bitcoin a legal tender, while calling for strict regulation of the country’s e-wallet.
IMF board members “urged the authorities to narrow the scope of the Bitcoin law by removing bitcoin’s legal tender status,” the IMF said in a Tuesday statement following a yearly consultation.
Salvadoran Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya had no comment.
In September, El Salvador became the first country to make bitcoin a legal tender, alongside the U.S. dollar. Its economy has been dollarized for two decades.
The IMF has since repeatedly called for the move to be reversed, citing financial, economic and legal concerns.
The IMF board said it was important to boost financial inclusion and that the Chivo e-wallet, the government’s bitcoin exchange, could play this role.
However, they see “the need for strict regulation and oversight of the new ecosystem.”
Some board members were also concerned about the risks associated with El Salvador’s expected issuance of bitcoin-linked bonds, the IMF said.
The country is preparing the issuance of $1 billion in bonds, half of which would be used to purchase bitcoin. The government bets that the exposure to bitcoin gains will entice investors who would receive a dollar yield of 6.5%, much lower that what the market currently prices for similar Salvadoran government debt, closer to 17%.
In its statement, the IMF also warned that at current debt spending levels El Salvador’s public debt could rise to about 96% of GDP in 2026, calling it an “unsustainable path.”
Explainer: What’s Known About ‘Stealth’ Version of Omicron?
Scientists and health officials around the world are keeping their eyes on a descendant of the omicron variant that has been found in at least 40 countries, including the United States.
This version of the coronavirus, which scientists call BA.2, is widely considered stealthier than the original version of omicron because certain genetic traits make it somewhat harder to detect. Some scientists worry it could also be more contagious.
But they say there’s a lot they still don’t know about it, including whether it evades vaccines better or causes more severe disease.
Where has it spread?
Since mid-November, more than three dozen countries have uploaded nearly 15,000 genetic sequences of BA.2 to GISAID, a global platform for sharing coronavirus data. As of Tuesday morning, 96 of those sequenced cases came from the U.S.
“Thus far, we haven’t seen it start to gain ground” in the U.S., said Dr. Wesley Long, a pathologist at Houston Methodist in Texas, which has identified three cases of BA.2.
The mutant appears much more common in Asia and Europe. In Denmark, it made up 45% of all COVID-19 cases in mid-January, up from 20% two weeks earlier, according to Statens Serum Institut, which falls under the Danish Ministry of Health.
What’s known about this version of the virus?
BA.2 has lots of mutations. About 20 of them in the spike protein that studs the outside of the virus are shared with the original omicron. But it also has additional genetic changes not seen in the initial version.
It’s unclear how significant those mutations are, especially in a population that has encountered the original omicron, said Dr. Jeremy Luban, a virologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
For now, the original version, known as BA.1, and BA.2 are considered subsets of omicron. But global health leaders could give it its own Greek letter name if it is deemed a globally significant “variant of concern.”
The quick spread of BA.2 in some places raises concerns it could take off.
“We have some indications that it just may be as contagious or perhaps slightly more contagious than (original) omicron since it’s able to compete with it in some areas,” Long said. “But we don’t necessarily know why that is.”
An initial analysis by scientists in Denmark shows no differences in hospitalizations for BA.2 compared with the original omicron. Scientists there are still looking into this version’s infectiousness and how well current vaccines work against it. It’s also unclear how well treatments will work against it.
Doctors also don’t yet know for sure if someone who’s already had COVID-19 caused by omicron can be sickened again by BA.2. But they’re hopeful, especially that a prior omicron infection might lessen the severity of disease if someone later contracts BA.2.
The two versions of omicron have enough in common that it’s possible that infection with the original mutant “will give you cross-protection against BA.2,” said Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, an infectious diseases expert at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Scientists will be conducting tests to see if antibodies from an infection with the original omicron “are able to neutralize BA.2 in the laboratory and then extrapolate from there,” he said.
How concerned are health agencies?
The World Health Organization classifies omicron overall as a variant of concern, its most serious designation of a coronavirus mutant, but it doesn’t single out BA.2 with a designation of its own. Given its rise in some countries, however, the agency says investigations of BA.2 “should be prioritized.”
The U.K. Health Security Agency, meanwhile, has designated BA.2 a “variant under investigation,” citing the rising numbers found in the U.K. and internationally. Still, the original version of omicron remains dominant in the U.K.
Why is it harder to detect?
The original version of omicron had specific genetic features that allowed health officials to rapidly differentiate it from delta using a certain PCR test because of what’s known as “S gene target failure.”
BA.2 doesn’t have this same genetic quirk. So on the test, Long said, BA.2 looks like delta.
“It’s not that the test doesn’t detect it; it’s just that it doesn’t look like omicron,” he said. “Don’t get the impression that ‘stealth omicron’ means we can’t detect it. All of our PCR tests can still detect it.”
What should you do to protect yourself?
Doctors advise the same precautions they have all along: Get vaccinated and follow public health guidance about wearing masks, avoiding crowds and staying home when you’re sick.
“The vaccines are still providing good defense against severe disease, hospitalization and death,” Long said. “Even if you’ve had COVID-19 before — you’ve had a natural infection — the protection from the vaccine is still stronger, longer lasting and actually … does well for people who’ve been previously infected.”
The latest version is another reminder that the pandemic hasn’t ended.
“We all wish that it was over,” Long said, “but until we get the world vaccinated, we’re going to be at risk of having new variants emerge.”
Mekong Region Sees 224 New Species, Despite ‘Intense Threat,’ Report Says
A devil-horned newt, drought-resilient bamboo and a monkey named after a volcano were among 224 new species discovered in the Greater Mekong region in 2020, a conservation group said on Wednesday, despite the “intense threat” of habitat loss.
The discoveries listed in a report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) include a new rock gecko found in Thailand, a mulberry tree species in Vietnam, and a big-headed frog in Vietnam and Cambodia that is already threatened by deforestation.
The 224 discoveries underlined the rich biodiversity of the Mekong region, which encompasses Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, and was testament to the resilience of nature in surviving in fragmented and degraded natural habitats, WWF said.
“These species are extraordinary, beautiful products of millions of years of evolution, but are under intense threat, with many species going extinct even before they are described,” said K. Yoganand, WWF-Greater Mekong’s regional lead for wildlife and wildlife crime.
The area is home to some of the world’s most endangered species, at risk of habitat destruction, diseases from human activities and the illegal wildlife trade.
A United Nations report last year said wildlife trafficking in Southeast Asia was creeping back after a temporary disruption from coronavirus restrictions, which saw countries shut borders and tighten surveillance.
Uganda Ends COVID Curfew, and Nightlife Reopens
Uganda on Monday lifted its two-year COVID-19 curfew, allowing bars and nightspots to re-open. Excited revelers celebrated the end of one of the world’s longest lockdowns.
A reveler who only identified herself as Peace said she has been drinking every night of the lockdown.
Uganda imposed the nighttime curfew in March 2020 in a bid to limit the spread of the coronavirus, which has led to about 3,500 deaths in the country.
Every night, businesses had to shut down at 7, and no cars were allowed on the streets.
Peace tells VOA that during the lockdown, she ventured into bars owned by government employees that continued to operate in secret but charged high prices for beer.
Excited, she said she is happy she can now drink at her favorite local bar.
“But I’m glad that they opened,” Peace said. “I can manage to go out. I can freely move with a boda. Or I can drive. Like here, three beers at ten thousand. So, if I move out with fifty thousand, I can spend the whole night.”
The government lifted the curfew on Monday, but some restrictions remain.Anyone wandering into a bar or restaurant must wear a mask and show their COVID vaccination card.
Fred Enanga, the Uganda Police spokesperson, cautioned the public to adhere to the health and safety protocols if they do not want to return to curfew.
“Therefore, it is important that all proprietors and managers in night life and the night economy carefully manage the reopening of their business in the safest possible way,” Enanga said. “Where possible they can have ventilation systems in all venues, Sanitation stations throughout the venues.”
Chris, a manager at the High Five bar in Kampala, is hoping to recover the losses he has incurred in the last two years. Monday’s business was disappointing, he said – he didn’t get as many customers as he wished.
The real challenge, he said, could be implementing the safety measures.
“It has been two long years without operating. It is difficult to really tell everybody, show me your vaccination card or certificate,” Chris said. “Nonetheless, we have sanitizer, all the waitresses are vaccinated and we believe we are ready.”
As Uganda attempts to return to normalcy, including the night life, statistics from the Ministry of Health show that as of Sunday, the country had recorded about 160,000 cases of COVID-19.
About 12,5 million people have been vaccinated, well short of the government’s target of 20 million.
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