Month: July 2022

Africa Prepares Rollout of World’s First Malaria Vaccine

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Preparations are underway for the mass rollout of the world’s first malaria vaccine to protect millions of children in Africa.

The rollout is being funded by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, for nearly $160 million.

The World Health Organization said Gavi’s multimillion-dollar funding marks a key advance in the fight against one of Africa’s most severe public health threats. It noted that countries in sub-Saharan Africa bear the brunt of the yearly toll of more than 240 million global cases of malaria, including more than 600,000 reported deaths. The main victims are children under age 5.

WHO regional director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti said one child dies every minute in Africa, with catastrophic consequences for families, communities and national development.

The vaccine was introduced in Africa in 2019. Since then, more than 1.3 million children have benefited from the lifesaving inoculations in three pilot countries — Ghana, Kenya and Malawi. Moeti said those countries have reported a 30 percent drop in hospitalizations of children with severe malaria and a 9% reduction in child deaths.

“If delivered at scale, millions of new cases could be averted, and tens of thousands of lives saved every year,” Moeti said. “We were encouraged to see that demand for the vaccine is high, even in the context of COVID-19, with the first dose reaching between 73% to over 90% coverage.”

Thabani Maphosa, managing director of country programs at Gavi, called the vaccine the most effective tool in the fight against malaria, one that will save children’s lives. However, he said, demand for the lifesaving product will outstrip supply.

“Our challenge during this critical phase is to ensure the doses we have available are used as effectively and equitably as possible,” Maphosa said. “With this is mind, Gavi today is opening an application window for malaria support.”

He said the three pilot countries, which already have experience in rolling out the vaccine, will get first crack at applying for and receiving funding. So, practically speaking, Maphosa said, they will require little help in setting up their systems to get the operation underway.

Maphosa said a second round of funding will take place at the end of the year. At that time, he said other countries with moderate to high cases of severe malaria can submit applications for support.
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E-Commerce in Africa Projected to Grow 56% by 2025

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Online sales boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic, including those in some parts of Africa, where industry analysts say online trade is expected to grow by over half in the next three years. The continent’s online market potential faces numerous challenges, though. For VOA, Linda Givetash reports from Johannesburg.
Videographer: Zaheer Cassim
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US Congress Moves Toward $52 Billion in Subsidies for Semiconductor Firms

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The Senate this week took a key step toward passing a bill meant to provide $52 billion in subsidies to the semiconductor industry in the United States, part of an effort that lawmakers have characterized as protecting the country from supply shortages such as those that struck during the coronavirus pandemic.

The bill, called the CHIPS for America Act, also seeks to make the U.S. more competitive with China.

Semiconductors, commonly known as chips, are essential elements of modern manufacturing. They are used in computers, cellphones and automobiles as well as in various other capacities. During the pandemic, chip shortages slowed manufacturing in multiple industries to a crawl.

The legislation would create incentives for semiconductor manufacturers to build chip fabrication plants in the U.S. to bring back domestic production levels, which have fallen from more than one-third of total global capacity three decades ago to less than 12% now.

Discussing the legislation on the Senate floor, Senator Rob Portman, a Republican, said, “It is a plan to make America more competitive with China, and a plan to bring good jobs back to America.”

In a 64-34 procedural vote Tuesday, with more than a dozen Republicans voting with the overwhelming majority of Democrats, the Senate cleared the way for the legislation to come to a vote as soon as this week. The House of Representatives would need to pass the bill — which is still not in its final form — before President Joe Biden could sign it into law.

Making the case

Before the vote Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told his colleagues that the bill “will fight inflation, boost American manufacturing, ease our supply chains and protect American security interests.”

He added: “America will fall behind in so many areas if we don’t pass this bill, and we could very well lose our ranking as the No. 1 economy and innovator in the world if we can’t pass this.”

Senator John Cornyn, the most senior Republican to vote in favor of advancing the bill, used Twitter to make his case ahead of the vote.

“If the US lost access to advanced semiconductors (none made in US) in the first year, GDP could shrink by 3.2 percent and we could lose 2.4 million jobs,” he tweeted. “The GDP loss would 3X larger ($718 B) than the estimated $240 B of US GDP lost in 2021 due to the ongoing chip shortage.”

The money in the bill comes with significant strings attached. Companies accepting the subsidies must agree not to use the funds for to buy back stock, pay shareholder dividends, or expand manufacturing in certain countries identified in the bill. Provisions allow the government to “claw back” the funds if a recipient violates any of the bill’s conditions.

Second try

If the bill advances to the House, it would mark the second time a bipartisan group of senators tried to secure money for the semiconductor industry. Last year, the Senate passed a $250 billion package that included broader research and development funding.

When the House received the bill, it waited nearly a year to pass its own version and made a number of additions that Senate Republicans would not agree to. The bill never advanced.

Now, however, things might be different. In a letter circulated to members of the House Democratic caucus on Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in favor of the bill.

“With this package, the United States returns to its status as a world leader in the manufacturing of semiconductor chips,” Pelosi wrote, noting that the bill would create an estimated 100,000 well-paid government contracting jobs in the industry.

“Doing so is an economic necessity to lower costs for consumers and to win in the 21st Century Economy, as well as a national security imperative as we seek to reduce our dependence on foreign manufacturers,” Pelosi wrote.

Industry reacts

In an email exchange with VOA, Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of Semi, a global industry trade group, said, “We are pleased to see action to reverse the decline in the U.S. share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity, which has fallen by 50 percent in the last 20 years and is forecast to shrink further.”

“The availability of robust incentives in other countries and the lack of a federal U.S. incentive have been key factors driving the location of more overseas manufacturing facilities,” Manocha added. “If the United States wants to maintain or increase its share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity, the federal government absolutely needs to get in the game.”

Semiconductor Industry Association President and CEO John Neuffer said in a statement, “The Senate CHIPS Act would greatly strengthen America’s economy, national security, and leadership in the technologies that will determine our future.”

He added, “This is America’s window of opportunity to re-invigorate chip manufacturing, design, and research on U.S. shores, and Congress should seize it before the window slams shut.” 
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Brussels Calls on EU Member States to Slash Natural Gas Use

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With tensions growing over the war in Ukraine and Russia’s energy cuts, the European Union’s executive arm is calling on member nations to cut natural gas consumption by 15% between August and next March to avoid what it calls energy ‘blackmail” — and its potentially catastrophic economic fallout.

The EU’s executive branch wants the 15% cuts to be across the board and, for now, voluntary, but seeks the power to make the reductions mandatory if Moscow deeply or completely cuts its gas exports to the bloc.   

“We have to be proactive. We have to prepare for a potential full disruption of Russian gas,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “And this is a likely scenario. What we’ve seen in the past, as we know, Russia is calculatingly trying to put pressure on us by reducing the supply of gas.”  

Russia’s Gazprom has already partly or fully cut supplies to nearly a dozen of the EU’s 27 members, as Brussels tightens sanctions against Moscow over the war in Ukraine. Already, the International Monetary Fund says, even this partial cutoff is hurting European economies.  

More recently, Gazprom shut its key Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany and beyond, ostensibly for short-term maintenance. It’s unclear if the pipeline will resume operation. Brussels wants member states to prepare for the worst.  

“Russia is blackmailing us. Russia is using energy as a weapon,” von der Leyen said.  

Last year, Russia provided 40% of the EU’s total gas. Since Moscow invaded Ukraine in late February, the bloc has been seeking to diversify supply sources. But experts say that won’t be enough to meet its energy needs. Countries like Finland and the Netherlands are already cutting consumption.  

While proposed cuts cover European industries, Brussels wants ordinary citizens and others to save energy — especially as climate change fears hit home this week, with record-breaking heatwaves in some parts of Europe.  

Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said a new creative approach is needed.  

“Do we need to have the lights on in empty office buildings or shop fronts all nights? he asked. “Do we have to have air conditioning set at 20 degrees (68 degrees Fahrenheit)? It could be higher, couldn’t it?”  

Still, some of Brussels’ proposals, like diversifying gas sources and extending coal plants, will inject more emissions into the air in the short term. EU member states still need to approve the commission’s proposals. Energy ministers will discuss them next week.
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WHO: Millions of Refugees, Migrants Suffer Ill Health for Lack of Care

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A new study shines a light on the health risks, challenges, and barriers faced daily by millions of refugees and migrants who suffer from poor health because they lack access to the health care available to others in their host countries.

The World Health Organization has just published its first world report on the health of refugees and migrants. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called it a landmark report and an alarm bell.

He said the report reveals the wide disparities between the health of refugees and migrants and the wider populations in their host countries.  

“For example, many migrant workers are engaged in the so-called 3-D jobs—dirty, dangerous, and demanding—without adequate social and health protection or sufficient occupational health measures,” he said. “Refugees and migrants are virtually absent from global surveys and health data, making these vulnerable groups almost invisible in the design of health systems and services.”   

Tedros noted that one billion people or one in every eight people on Earth is a refugee or migrant. He said the numbers were growing. Tedros added that more and more people will be on the move in response to burgeoning conflicts, climate change, rising inequality, and global emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said the health needs of refugees and migrants often are neglected or unaddressed in the countries they pass through or settle in.

“They face multiple barriers, including out of pocket costs, discrimination and fear of detention and deportation,” Tedros said. “Many countries do have health policies that include health services for refugees and migrants. But too many are either ineffective or are yet to be implemented effectively.”

Waheed Arian, an Afghan refugee and a medical doctor in Britain, recalls the conditions under which he and his family lived in a refugee camp in Pakistan during the late 1980s. He said they were exposed to many diseases, including malaria and tuberculosis. 

“The conditions that we see in refugee camps now in various parts of the world – they are not too dissimilar to the conditions that I experienced firsthand,” he said. “Although we were safe from bombs, we were not physically safe. We were not socially safe, and we were not mentally safe.”   

WHO chief Tedros is calling on governments and organizations that work with refugees and migrants to come together to protect and promote the health of people on the move. He said the report sets forth strategies for achieving more equitable, inclusive health systems that prioritize the well-being of all people.
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Drought Could Raise Risk of Diarrheal Disease in Children

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Drought can slightly increase developing world children’s risk of diarrheal disease, researchers have found, adding that wetter regions seem to be affected differently than drier ones. 

Diarrhea is the second-leading cause of death among children worldwide, and climate change is making droughts longer, more frequent and more severe, the new study published in the journal Nature Communications found. 

The study, based on data from 51 low- and middle-income countries, found that children were more likely to recently have had diarrhea following six months to two years of drought conditions, although the effect of drought differed across dry, temperate and tropical climate zones. 

Previous studies found links between diarrheal disease and rainfall, flooding and seasonality, but little was known before about the effects of drought. 

The new study “fills that void of understanding the impacts associated with drought specifically, as opposed to flooding, extreme rains and seasonality,” said epidemiologist Joseph Eisenberg of the University of Michigan, who was not involved in the study. 

“Water plays an essential role both in helping address the problem as well as increasing the risk of being exposed,” he said. 

Water essential  for good hygiene

Water is central to the spread and prevention of diarrheal disease. Germs that cause diarrhea survive and spread in water, but water is also important for hygienic practices, such as hand-washing, that prevent infections. 

Study author Pin Wang, an environmental epidemiologist at Yale University, and his colleagues thought drought could force families to prioritize scarce water for drinking rather than washing, leaving children more vulnerable to diarrhea. 

“Drought can directly impact the WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) practices,” Wang said. “Because of the insufficient water supply, people might prioritize the water for other necessary uses, such as drinking, but not for washing hands and also flushing [the] toilet.” 

Wang and his colleagues combined weather records with data on diarrhea in over 1.3 million children under the age of 5 from the Demographic and Health Surveys Program, which surveys representative families to collect data on health and demographics in the developing world. The Demographic and Health Surveys data also included information on each child, household wealth and WASH practices. 

Using this data, the researchers then determined whether the children in the dataset had experienced drought, how long the drought had lasted, and how severe it had been relative to normal conditions. 

Correcting for differences among households and individual children, the researchers found that exposure to a six-month drought slightly increased the risk of diarrhea in children under age 5. Risk was 5% higher after mild drought and 8% higher after severe drought, though the strength of drought’s effect on diarrhea depended on other factors, such as local climate, hygiene and water access. 

In dry regions, droughts lasting six months did not affect diarrhea rates significantly, but droughts lasting two years did. 

The authors speculate that it may be because these dry regions are already prepared for short periods of water scarcity but can’t cope with very long droughts. On the other hand, tropical and temperate regions saw worse effects in six-month droughts than in longer ones, perhaps because they are less prepared for water shortages in the short term but have more water available in general to help adapt in the long term. 

The researchers found that families in a drought washed their hands and performed other WASH practices less often than those who were not experiencing drought. That accounted for about 10% of the increase in diarrhea rates in mild drought and about 20% in severe conditions. 

Children whose families need to walk more than 30 minutes to collect water also had a higher risk of diarrhea associated with severe drought than those whose families had water nearby. 

More studies needed

Eisenberg said that the study was a good first step, but that more studies would be needed to confirm the results. 

“I think the biggest implication … as a hypothesis-generating result is that it will promote and motivate people to conduct some more sophisticated studies to sort of back up the findings,” he said. 

Wang also said that future studies would be needed to back up his findings. And as climate change is expected to shake up rainfall patterns around the world, he said he hopes his result will translate into policy that would protect children from diarrheal disease brought on by drought. 

“We obviously think that with climate change, there will be higher incidence of drought events in the future, particularly … in the places where it’s already having less rainfall right now,” Wang said. “We need to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, that’s the first thing. The second is that the WASH variables should be emphasized or prioritized — particularly in these low- and middle-income countries. People need better WASH practices to reduce their diarrhea risks.”
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Cities Unprepared for More Intense and Frequent Heat Waves

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The world is bracing for more intense heat waves fueled by climate change this summer, and urban centers across the world are unprepared to face these brutal natural disasters.
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US Overdose Deaths Jumped for Blacks, Native Americans During Pandemic

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Overdose deaths increased 44% for Blacks and 39% for Native Americans in 2020 compared with 2019, as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted access to care and exacerbated racial inequality, an official report showed Tuesday.

“Racism, a root cause of health disparities, continues to be a serious public health threat that directly affects the well-being of millions of Americans,” U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acting Principal Deputy Director Debra Houry said in a briefing.

“The disproportionate increase in overdose death rates among Black and American Indian/Alaskan Native people may partly be due to health inequities, like unequal access to substance use treatment and treatment biases.”

Recent increases in deaths were largely driven by illegally manufactured fentanyl and fentanyl analogs, according to the report from the CDC.

Before the pandemic, the overdose death rate was similar for Black, Native and white people, at 27, 26 and 25 per 100,000 people in 2019.

But that changed dramatically in 2020, when the respective figures were 39, 36 and 31 per 100,000 people.

Though the increase among white people was not as great as for Blacks and Native Americans, the new rate is still a historic high.

Among key findings: The overdose death rate among Black males 65 years and older was nearly seven times that of their white counterparts.

Black people 15-24 years old experienced the largest rate increase, 86%, compared with changes seen in other groups.

“There was a substantially lower percentage of people in racial and ethnic minority groups showing evidence of ever receiving treatment for substance use, compared to white people,” CDC health scientist Mbabazi Kariisa said during the briefing.

In fact, most people who died by overdose had no evidence of getting prior substance use treatment before their death.

Areas with a wider income gap between rich and poor had the highest death rates.

Being impoverished “can lead to lack of stable housing, reliable transportation and health insurance, making it even more difficult for people to access treatment and other support services,” Kariisa said.

In terms of recommendations, Houry said it was vital to raise awareness about the lethality of the illicit drug supply, particularly fentanyl, and encourage people to carry the life-saving treatment Naloxone.

Improving access to treatment and offering structural support, such as transport assistance and child care, can improve care access.

“Combining culturally appropriate traditional practices, spirituality and religion with evidence-based substance use disorder treatment also helps raise awareness and reduce stigma,” she said.

“While we have made so much progress in treating substance use disorders as chronic conditions, rather than moral failings, there is still so much more work to do, including making sure that all people who need these services can get them,” Houry concluded.
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Judge Sets October Trial For Musk-Twitter Takeover Dispute

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Elon Musk lost a fight to delay Twitter’s lawsuit against him as a Delaware judge on Tuesday set an October trial, citing the “cloud of uncertainty” over the social media company after the billionaire backed out of a deal to buy it.

“Delay threatens irreparable harm,” said Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, the head judge of Delaware’s Court of Chancery, which handles many high-profile business disputes. “The longer the delay, the greater the risk.”

Twitter had asked for an expedited trial in September, while Musk’s team called for waiting until early next year because of the complexity of the case. McCormick said Musk’s team underestimated the Delaware court’s ability to “quickly process complex litigation.”

Twitter is trying to force the billionaire to make good on his April promise to buy the social media giant for $44 billion — and the company wants it to happen quickly because it says the ongoing dispute is harming its business.

Musk, the world’s richest man, pledged to pay $54.20 a share for Twitter, but now wants to back out of the agreement.

“It’s attempted sabotage. He’s doing his best to run Twitter down,” said attorney William Savitt, representing Twitter in Delaware’s Court of Chancery before the court’s Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick. The hearing was held virtually after McCormick said she tested positive for COVID-19.

Musk has claimed the company has failed to provide adequate information about the number of fake, or “spam bot,” Twitter accounts, and that it has breached its obligations under the deal by firing top managers and laying off a significant number of employees.

But the idea the Tesla CEO is trying to damage Twitter is “preposterous. He has no interest in damaging the company,” said Musk’s attorney Andrew Rossman, noting he is Twitter’s second largest shareholder with a far larger stake than the entire board.

Savitt emphasized the importance of an expedited trial starting in September for Twitter to be able to make important business decisions affecting everything from employee retention to relationships with suppliers and customers.

Rossman said more time is needed because it is “one of the largest take-private deals in history” involving a “company that has a massive amount of data that has to be analyzed. Billions of actions on their platform have to be analyzed.”
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The Universe as Never Before Seen

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The James Webb telescope is giving the world the clearest ever images of our universe. For VOA News Antoni Belchi has the story.

 
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US Abortion Rights Reversal to Impact Africa, Campaigners Worry  

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The U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning the right to abortion has raised concerns among activists about a domino effect in developing countries, including in Africa. In Kenya, anti-abortion groups have welcomed the ruling while abortion rights supporters fear it could further restrict the reproductive health of girls and women. Juma Majanga reports from Nairobi. Camera: Jimmy Makhulo  
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Yellen Calls Out China Trade Practices in South Korea Visit

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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the U.S. and South Korea should deepen their trade ties to avoid working with countries that use their market positions to unfair advantage — calling out China by name.

“We cannot allow countries like China to use their market position in key raw materials, technologies, or products to disrupt our economy or exercise unwanted geopolitical leverage,” Yellen said in remarks prepared for delivery Monday, according to excerpts provided by the Treasury Department.

She is set to make the speech at an LG Corp. factory in South Korea. LG in April announced plans to build a $1.4 billion battery plant in Queen Creek, Arizona. 

Yellen represented the U.S. at the Group of 20 finance minister meetings on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali and made stops in Tokyo, Japan and Seoul, South Korea. She avoided visiting China but held a call with China’s vice premier at the start of the month.

Yellen has been a critic of China’s economic relationship with Russia — urging the Asian superpower to use its “special relationship with Russia” to persuade Russia to end its invasion of Ukraine.

China “has directed significant resources to seek a dominant position in the manufacturing of certain advanced technologies, including semiconductors, while employing a range of unfair trade practices to achieve this position,” she said in her prepared speech.

Citing “the unfair Chinese practices that damage our national security interests,” Yellen calls on countries to engage in “friend-shoring” as a means to lower economic risks for participating economies.

Friend-shoring, which Yellen has brought up in several speeches, refers to countries with shared values agreeing to trade practices that encourage manufacturing and reducing risks to supply chains.

The global economy has been ravaged by the impacts of the war in Ukraine and shutdowns caused by COVID-19. Skyrocketing energy costs and high inflation have touched every part of the globe.

The Indo-Pacific region is seeing this play out in Sri Lanka, which is struggling through the island nation’s worst economic crisis.

Yellen is set to make her statements ahead of a Tuesday meeting with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to end her first trip as treasury secretary to the Indo-Pacific region. 
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China Urges Banks to Extend Loans for Real Estate Projects Amid Mortgage Boycott

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Chinese regulators Sunday urged banks to extend loans to qualified real estate projects and meet developers financing needs where reasonable, in their latest effort to ease concerns triggered by a widening mortgage-payment boycott on unfinished houses.

The remarks by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) came after a growing number of home buyers across China threatened to stop making their mortgage payments for stalled property projects, aggravating a real estate crisis that has already hit the economy. 

Investors have continued to dump Chinese banking stocks as well as developers’ shares and bonds, even after the CBIRC vowed Thursday to strengthen its coordination with other regulators to “guarantee the delivery of homes.” 

In an interview with the official China Banking and Insurance News on Sunday, the CBIRC reiterated that it will support local governments to promote home delivery, and expressed confidence that with concerted efforts, “all the difficulties and problems will be properly solved.”

More specifically, the regulator urged banks to “shoulder social responsibility” and actively participate in the study of plans to fill the funding gap, so that the construction of stalled real estate projects can be resumed swiftly, and homes can be delivered to buyers early.

It also urged banks to strengthen communication with mortgage clients and support acquisitions of real estate projects to help stabilize the property market.

In addition, the watchdog said that financial risks in the northeastern province of Liaoning has been growing recently but were under control, and the government will take measures to prevent risks at China’s small lenders.
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Thailand Sets 2028 Target to Finish High-Speed Rail Link with China

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Thailand’s recent pledge to finish a long-delayed high-speed rail line linking it to China through Laos within six years is reigniting doubts about the country’s commitment and whether the $12 billion megaproject will pay off.

Transport and Foreign Affairs ministries officials told reporters July 6 Thailand will complete the 609-kilometer line from the capital, Bangkok, to the Lao border at Nong Khai, now only 5% built, by 2028. Nong Khai is just across the Mekong River from the Lao capital of Vientiane, where a high-speed train to the Lao-China border started service in December.

With trains running at a maximum speed of 250 km/h, the new line will collapse the time the Bangkok-Nong Khai journey takes now on existing standard-gauge tracks.

The 2028 announcement came a day after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha and Foreign Affairs Minister Don Pramudwinai in Bangkok. A Thai Foreign Affairs Ministry statement on Wang’s visit says the meeting included talks on a “Thailand-Laos-China Connectivity Development Corridor.”

The project is part of Beijing’s long-term plans to link China’s Yunnan province to the bustling ports of Singapore via high-speed trains cutting through Laos, Thailand and Malaysia in a key piece of its grand Belt and Road initiative.

Cautious commitment

When Thailand started planning its portion of the line with China over a decade ago, the goal was to have it done by about the same time as Laos finished its own 414-kilometer stretch, Ruth Banomyong, a professor of international trade, transport and logistics at Thailand’s Thammasat University, told VOA. But with that target long since abandoned, he said top government transport officials were still noncommittal on a new goal just last month at a seminar he attended, making the announcement on July 6 “a bit confusing.”

Ruth said the new target was feasible but may be more of a political statement than a “technical” one, made with an eye on national elections due next year and Prayut’s fractious coalition government looking increasingly unsteady.

“The prime minister is probably at his lowest in terms of various [opinion] polls that have been published, and he wants to stay in power, but he needs to have something to show for himself,” said Ruth. “So, they need to re-put this project in the public eye, saying that, oh yes, it is going to be done.”

He said growing frustration in Beijing with the pace of Thailand’s progress may have played a part in the announcement, too.

“The fact that it’s announced after a meeting with the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, it does make it look like they’re feeling some pressure to be at least looking like they’re moving forward with this project,” said Greg Raymond, a lecturer at Australian National University studying China’s growing connections with mainland Southeast Asia.

“But when you look at the pattern of [Thailand’s] decision-making, the pattern of action … the degree of commitment has to be questioned,” he added.

Analysts say the line, once complete, will help plug some of Southeast Asia’s largest and most dynamic economies into China’s landlocked south, giving the underdeveloped region a much-needed boost.

As with much of the Belt and Road Initiative, Raymond said, it also builds on Beijing’s broader goal of forging a regional economy centered on China, and of wielding that position to bend the foreign policies of other countries to its will. He pointed to Thailand’s scrapping of plans years ago to host a NASA climate change monitoring program, which he said was probably because China would not like having something like that so close. At the same time, he added, linking southern China to some of mainland Southeast Asia’s main ports would ease the pressure on China’s vital sea trade routes in case of conflict.

“If there’s a conflict between China and the United States, I think one of the things that China’s vulnerable to is a blockade by the [U.S. Navy’s] 7th Fleet, particularly at the Malacca Strait, so I think there is that sort of strategic imperative,” Raymond said.

Cost and benefit

For Thailand, the new line could mean more exports to, and investment from, China.

Ruth, though, said it will take decades, not years, for the $12 billion project to pay for itself, and only if the government also invests in the additional freight and passenger services needed to bring out the line’s full potential. Done right, he added, the line could also spur new growth and development along its route through Thailand’s rural northeast.

But Ruth said the government has yet to share its forecasts for key factors such as passenger numbers or freight traffic, making a hard-nosed assessment of the project impossible.

“What we tend to see is that a lot of these forecasts are very, very optimistic, and that’s why you sometimes end up with having white elephants … nice infrastructure that is not utilized fully, so that’s really the risk,” he warned.

Bryan Tse, Southeast Asia analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit, said the high-speed train line’s focus, for now, appears to be on passengers, not freight, dimming the odds that Thailand can make the $12 billion back in 10 or even 20 years. If the main goal were boosting freight traffic, he said China would probably have focused on upgrading the network of regular train tracks crisscrossing Southeast Asia already, which would be cheaper.

But the project need not necessarily pay for itself directly to pay off for Thailand in other ways, Tse added.

“If getting this railway done means that you get the good will of the Chinese government … then you may get a lot of things in return politically and economically, in terms of investment, for instance,” he said.

Still, the analysts say Thailand is likely to remain hesitant about the project; $12 billion is a lot, and the added strain the pandemic has put on the country’s economy will only make it harder to move forward on the line to Laos, not to mention any high-speed line that might eventually be built south of Bangkok to Malaysia.

Raymond said Thailand is also wary of any moves, the high-speed rail line included, that might draw China too close for comfort.

“They don’t want to be drawn in, really, to a Beijing-centered economy if they think it’s going to reduce their freedom of maneuver,” he said. “They’re always seeking to balance their relationships; they don’t want to become too dependent on any of them. This is the classic hedging behavior, but it’s very strong with Thailand.”

Now that Laos is done with its stretch of the line, the analysts agreed that China is likely to focus its attention on seeing that Thailand picks up the pace.

Whatever their reservations, Raymond said, their Thai partners “might eventually feel like they have to do it.”

 
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India’s COVID Vaccinations Hit 2 Billion, New Cases at Four-Month High

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The Indian government’s COVID-19 vaccinations hit 2 billion on Sunday, with booster doses underway for all adults, as daily infections hit four-month high, official data showed.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi extolled the vaccination milestone, celebrating the world’s largest and longest-running inoculation campaign, which began last year. 

“India creates history again!” Modi said in a tweet. The prime minister has faced allegations from the opposition of mishandling the pandemic that experts claim killed millions. The government rejects the claims.

Health ministry data shows the COVID death toll at 525,709, with 49 deaths recorded overnight.

New cases rose 20,528 over the past 24 hours, the highest since Feb. 20, according to data compiled by Reuters.

The country of 1.35 billion people has lifted most COVID-related restrictions, and international travel has recovered robustly.

Some 80% of the inoculations have been the AstraZeneca AZN.L vaccine made domestically, called Covishield. Others include domestically developed Covaxin and Corbevax, and Russia’s Sputnik V.

The federal government has been accelerating its booster campaign to avert the spread of infections, edging higher in the eastern states of Assam, West Bengal and Karnataka in the south.
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Long Lines Are Back at US Food Banks as Inflation Hits High

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Long lines are back at food banks around the U.S. as working Americans overwhelmed by inflation turn to handouts to help feed their families.

With gas prices soaring along with grocery costs, many people are seeking charitable food for the first time, and more are arriving on foot.

Inflation in the U.S. is at a 40-year high and gas prices have been surging since April 2020, with the average cost nationwide briefly hitting $5 a gallon in June. Rapidly rising rents and an end to federal COVID-19 relief have also taken a financial toll.

The food banks, which had started to see some relief as people returned to work after pandemic shutdowns, are struggling to meet the latest need even as federal programs provide less food to distribute, grocery store donations wane and cash gifts don’t go nearly as far.

Tomasina John was among hundreds of families lined up in several lanes of cars that went around the block one recent day outside St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix. John said her family had never visited a food bank before because her husband had easily supported her and their four children with his construction work.

“But it’s really impossible to get by now without some help,” said John, who traveled with a neighbor to share gas costs as they idled under a scorching desert sun. “The prices are way too high.”

Jesus Pascual was also in the queue.

“It’s a real struggle,” said Pascual, a janitor who estimated he spends several hundred dollars a month on groceries for him, his wife and their five children aged 11 to 19.

The same scene is repeated across the nation, where food bank workers predict a rough summer keeping ahead of demand.

The surge in food prices comes after state governments ended COVID-19 disaster declarations that temporarily allowed increased benefits under SNAP, the federal food stamp program covering some 40 million Americans .

“It does not look like it’s going to get better overnight,” said Katie Fitzgerald, president and chief operating officer for the national food bank network Feeding America. “Demand is really making the supply challenges complex.”

Charitable food distribution has remained far above amounts given away before the coronavirus pandemic, even though demand tapered off somewhat late last year.

Feeding America officials say second quarter data won’t be ready until August, but they are hearing anecdotally from food banks nationwide that demand is soaring.

The Phoenix food bank’s main distribution center doled out food packages to 4,271 families during the third week in June, a 78% increase over the 2,396 families served during the same week last year, said St. Mary’s spokesman Jerry Brown.

More than 900 families line up at the distribution center every weekday for an emergency government food box stuffed with goods such as canned beans, peanut butter and rice, said Brown. St. Mary’s adds products purchased with cash donations, as well as food provided by local supermarkets like bread, carrots and pork chops for a combined package worth about $75.

Distribution by the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Northern California has ticked up since hitting a pandemic low at the beginning of this year, increasing from 890 households served on the third Friday in January to 1,410 households on the third Friday in June, said marketing director Michael Altfest.

At the Houston Food Bank, the largest food bank in the U.S. where food distribution levels earlier in the pandemic briefly peaked at a staggering 1 million pounds a day, an average of 610,000 pounds is now being given out daily.

That’s up from about 500,000 pounds a day before the pandemic, said spokeswoman Paula Murphy said.

Murphy said cash donations have not eased, but inflation ensures they don’t go as far.

Food bank executives said the sudden surge in demand caught them off guard.

“Last year, we had expected a decrease in demand for 2022 because the economy had been doing so well,” said Michael Flood, CEO for the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. “This issue with inflation came on pretty suddenly.”

“A lot of these are people who are working and did OK during the pandemic and maybe even saw their wages go up,” said Flood. “But they have also seen food prices go up beyond their budgets.”

The Los Angeles bank gave away about 30 million pounds of food during the first three months of this year, slightly less than the previous quarter but still far more than the 22 million pounds given away during the first quarter of 2020.

Feeding America’s Fitzgerald is calling on USDA and Congress to find a way to restore hundreds of millions of dollars worth of commodities recently lost with the end of several temporary programs to provide food to people in need. USDA commodities, which generally can represent as much as 30% of the food the banks disperse, accounted for more than 40% of all food distributed in fiscal year 2021 by the Feeding America network.

“There is a critical need for the public sector to purchase more food now,” said Fitzgerald.

During the Trump administration, USDA bought several billions of dollars in pork, apples, dairy, potatoes and other products in a program that gave most of it to food banks. The “Food Purchase & Distribution Program” designed to help American farmers harmed by tariffs and other practices of U.S. trade partners has since ended. There was $1.2 billion authorized for the 2019 fiscal year and another $1.4 billion authorized for fiscal 2020.

Another temporary USDA “Farmers to Families” program that provided emergency relief provided more than 155 million food boxes for families in need across the U.S. during the height of the pandemic before ending May 31, 2021.

A USDA spokesperson noted the agency is using $400 million from the Build Back Better initiative to establish agreements with states, territories and tribal governments t o buy food from local, regional and underserved producers that can be given to food banks, schools and other feeding programs.

For now, there’s enough food, but there might not be in the future, said Michael G. Manning, president and CEO at Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank in Louisiana. He said high fuel costs also make it far more expensive to collect and distribute food.

The USDA’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which included Farmers to Families, was “a boon” for the Alameda County Community Food Bank, providing 5 billion pounds of commodities over a single year, said spokesman Altfest.

“So losing that was a big hit,” he said.

Altfest said as many as 10% of the people now seeking food are first timers, and a growing number are showing up on foot rather than in cars to save gas.

“The food they get from us is helping them save already-stretched budgets for other expenses like gas, rent, diapers and baby formula,” he said.

Meanwhile, food purchases by the bank have jumped from a monthly average of $250,000 before the pandemic to as high as $1.5 million now because of food prices. Rocketing gasoline costs forced the bank to increase its fuel budget by 66%, Altfest said.

Supply chain issues are also a problem, requiring the food bank to become more aggressive with procurement.

“We used to reorder when our inventory dropped to three weeks’ worth, now we reorder up to six weeks out,” said Altfest.

He said the food bank has already ordered and paid for whole chickens, stuffing, cranberries and other holiday feast items it will distribute for Thanksgiving, the busiest time of the year.

At the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation in Montebello east of Los Angeles, workers say they are seeing many families along with older people like Diane Martinez, who lined up one recent morning on foot.

Some of the hundreds of mostly Spanish-speaking recipients had cars parked nearby. They carried cloth bags, cardboard boxes or shoved pushcarts to pick up their food packages from the distribution site the Los Angeles bank serves.

“The prices of food are so high and they’re going up higher every day,” said Martinez, who expressed gratitude for the bags of black beans, ground beef and other groceries. “I’m so glad that they’re able to help us.”
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Macao to Extend City Lockdown, Casino Closure

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Macao’s government will extend a lockdown of casinos and other businesses until Friday, as authorities work to stop the spread of COVID-19 in the world’s biggest gambling hub, according to a statement on its website.

The lockdown in the Chinese special administrative region had been set to end  Monday.

Macao imposed the shutdown last Monday, shuttering the city’s economic engine — its casinos — and forbidding residents from leaving their apartments, except for essential activities such as grocery shopping.

Macao has recorded around 1,700 coronavirus infections since mid-June. More than 20,000 people are in mandatory quarantine as the government adheres to China’s zero-COVID policy, which aims to stamp out all outbreaks, running counter to a global trend of trying to coexist with the virus.

More than 90% of Macao’s 600,000 residents are fully vaccinated against COVID but this is the first time the city has had to grapple with the fast-spreading omicron variant.

The former Portuguese colony has only one public hospital for its more than 600,000 residents, and its medical system was stretched before the coronavirus outbreak.

Authorities have set up a makeshift hospital in a sports dome near the city’s Las Vegas-style Cotai strip and have about 600 medical workers from the mainland assisting them.

In neighboring Hong Kong, authorities are starting to loosen draconian coronavirus restrictions even as daily cases top 3,000, in a push to reboot the financial hub and its economy.
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China’s Hopes High as Space Station Nears Completion

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Chinese astronauts, known as taikonauts, and a ground crew are working to finish their country’s first permanent orbiting space station and the world’s second by year’s end, official media outlets say.

That milestone will boost China’s national pride and provide it with new channels for economic development and a possible new tool for military use on the ground, analysts say.

The space program advances China’s goal of being “strong and prosperous” by 2049, said Dexter Roberts, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Asia Security Initiative and author of “The Myth of Chinese Capitalism.” That year marks the 100th anniversary of Communist Party rule in China.

“Developing the economy, becoming wealthier and raising national prestige globally and becoming stronger geopolitically are all very, very clear goals of the party,” he said. 

A crew aboard the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft last month kicked off six months of work on the Tiangong space station, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. 

Personnel in space and on the ground will finish building the space station, expanding it from a single-module structure to triple-module national space laboratory, Xinhua said. 

The U.S. space agency, NASA, bars China from using the International Space Station on military security grounds, prompting China to embark on its own 10 years ago. China launched its broader space program in the 1960s. 

Pride and power projection 

China’s space station has been designed to be a “versatile space lab” that can hold 25 “cabinets” for experiments such as comparing the biological growth mechanism in varying at different gravitational levels, Xinhua said.

As conducted at the space station and on other space platforms, research into biology, life systems, medicine and materials is expected “to expand humanity’s understanding of basic science,” the State Council Information Office said in a January outlook for the program.

Other countries have already used China’s satellite services, including the BeiDou satellite navigation system, which was made available two years ago to Pakistan. Those systems can survey the aftermath of disasters and help launch satellites. 

Officials in Beijing have not said whether the space station will help the People’s Liberation Army. 

Space programs, including BeiDou, have a military and security side, said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington.  

“The Chinese will argue that while using (the) BeiDou system, you can navigate the weather, you can forecast the natural disasters, and you can also use the satellites to investigate and explore the terrains,” she said.  

“I think that’s one example of how Chinese space technology is having a real impact over countries on Earth,” Yun said. But, she said, “we all know that’s just one narrative.”

The People’s Liberation Army could technically dock military equipment systems in space or use satellites to survey the ground, experts have told VOA. China has the world’s third-strongest armed forces, a source of alarm for the West and smaller Asian countries.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will probably note the space station as an achievement during the national party congress expected before year’s end, Yun said. Experts say Xi is likely to seek appointment at the congress to a third five-year term as party general secretary.

 

“National prestige and security” are top concerns for Chinese leaders as they finish their space station, said the Roberts, of the Atlantic Council. 

The Chinese government is probably pushing the commercial side of its space program because it wants to catch up to the scale of NASA, he said. 

Chinese leaders may hope to develop their own aerospace technology through the space station, said Yan Liang, professor and chair of economics at Willamette University in the U.S. state of Oregon. Some of today’s components could be imports, she said.

“Definitely I do think that with the communication aspect that is about big data and all these other high-tech industries, it’s definitely in the interest for China to be able to do that and maybe later to export to other countries,” Liang said. 

Tiangong’s first module was christened last year. It operates 340 miles above the Earth’s surface, farther away than the International Space Station. 

After a Chinese Shenzhou-14 crew reaches gets to the space station, it will begin research projects and perform spacewalks from the lab module, Xinhua reported.
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Why People Worldwide Are Unhappier, More Stressed Than Ever

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The world was sadder and more stressed out in 2021 than ever before, according to a recent Gallup poll, which found that four in 10 adults worldwide said they experienced a lot of worry or stress.

Experts say the most obvious culprit, the pandemic — and the isolation and uncertainty that came with it — is a factor but not entirely to blame.

Carol Graham, a Gallup senior scientist, says the culprit for declining mental health includes the economic uncertainty faced by low-skilled workers.

“There are some structural negative changes that make some people in particular more vulnerable. And in the end, mental health just reflects that,” says Graham, who is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland.

“For young people who do not have good higher levels of education, what they’re going to do in the future is very unknown. What their stability will be like, what their workforce participation will be like. … Rising levels of inequality between skilled and unskilled workers is another part of it, having to do with technology-driven growth.”

Gallup spoke to adults in 122 countries and areas for its latest Global Emotions Report. Afghanistan is the unhappiest country, with Afghans leading the world when it comes to negative experiences.

Overall, the survey results were not surprising to psychologist Josh Briley, a fellow at The American Institute of Stress.

“Things are moving faster. There’s so much information being thrown at us all the time,” he says. “And of course, media thrives on the bad stuff. So, we are constantly being bombarded with crisis after crisis in the news, on social media, on the radio and on our podcasts. And all that is drowning out the good things that are happening.”

Psychologist Mary Karapetian Alvord says being more connected online means people in one country can feel profoundly affected by what happens in another country, which wasn’t always the case in the past. For her U.S. clients, uncertainty is the biggest stressor.

“Uncertainty of life and how it’s going to impact them on a daily basis. Prices going up and gas going up. And then the supply chain issues that are impacting people in their daily lives,” Alvord says. “But I think the bigger issue is that uncertainty and so much suffering. Of course, the shootings have come up. A lot of people are really stressed out and feeling like, ‘Where is it safe?’”

There have been more than 300 shootings involving multiple victims in the United States so far in 2022.

Happiness worldwide has been trending downward for a decade, according to Gallup. All three psychologists who spoke with VOA point to social media and the flood of unfiltered information as contributors to declining mental health and happiness.

“We’ve seen this explosion worldwide, and I think that’s a big sort of tectonic shift in how humans interact and experience emotions and all sorts of things. And we’re seeing that there’s some real downsides to it,” Graham says.

Briley says part of the problem is that although people are more connected online, they’re often less connected in real life.

“The connection that we have with people, the physical connection has changed. We’re more connected than ever before with people all the way around the world, but we may not know our neighbors’ names anymore,” he says. “So, we don’t necessarily have that person where if my car breaks down, who do I call for a ride to work?”

More optimism, despite frowns

On the upside, the survey found that the percentage of people who reported laughing or smiling a lot was up two points in 2021, while the number of people who say they learned something interesting increased one point. Alvord says looking beyond the negative is critical to maintaining mental health.

“It’s important for people to also find moments of, if not joy, at least satisfaction in life,” she says. “I think sometimes we reach for happiness and that’s just not attainable … and so, our expectations need to be realistic.”

Minorities in the United States might already be doing that. The survey found that people from marginalized groups are among the most resilient.

“Their anxiety may have increased but their optimism, particularly for low-income African Americans, remains very high,” Graham says. “It was a finding I’ve seen for many years, but it surprised me that even during COVID, it held. I think that’s more due to the kind of community ties and other ties that minority communities have built, almost informal safety nets, that have been very protective many, many times in history.”
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US Officials: States Getting More Monkeypox Vaccine Soon 

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More than 100,000 monkeypox vaccine doses are being sent to states in the next few days, and several million more are on order in the months ahead, U.S. health officials said Friday.

They also acknowledged that the vaccine supply hasn’t kept up with the demand seen in New York, California and other places.

Officials predicted that cases would keep rising for at least a few more weeks as the government tries to keep up with a surprising international outbreak accounting for hundreds of newly reported cases every day.

Some public health experts have begun to wonder if the outbreak is becoming widespread enough that monkeypox will become an entrenched sexually transmitted disease.

“All of our work right now is to prevent that from happening,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Monkeypox is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals. It does not usually spread easily among people.

But this year more than 12,000 cases have been reported in countries that historically don’t see the disease. The infections emerged in men who had sex with men at gatherings in Europe, though health officials have stressed that anyone can catch the virus.

As of Friday, more than 1,800 U.S. cases had been reported, with hundreds of cases being added to the tally each day. Nearly all are men, and the vast majority had same-sex encounters, according to the CDC.

Experts believe the case numbers are undercounts.

Lag between infection, symptoms

Walensky said she expected cases to rise at least into August, in part because it can take three weeks from the time someone is infected until that person develops symptoms and is diagnosed.

The virus mainly spreads through skin-on-skin contact, but it can also be transmitted through touching linens used by someone with monkeypox.

People with monkeypox may experience fever, body aches, chills and fatigue. Many in the outbreak have developed pimple-like bumps on many parts of the body.

No one has died, and the illness has been relatively mild in many men. But for some, the lesions can be “exquisitely painful” and there is a risk of scarring, said Dr. Mary Foote, medical director of the New York City health department’s Office of Emergency Preparedness and Response.

When the outbreak was first identified in May, U.S. officials had only about 2,000 doses of a new two-dose monkeypox vaccine available.

Officials have recommended the shots be given to people who know or suspect they were exposed to monkeypox in the previous two weeks, and vaccination clinics in some cities have been overwhelmed by demand. The government distributed 156,000 doses nationally as of Thursday, including 100,000 this week. And it expects to start delivering 131,000 more doses by Monday, said Dawn O’Connell of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

There also are about 800,000 doses in Denmark that will come to the U.S. soon. And the government this month announced orders of 5 million more doses, though most of those are not expected to arrive until next year.

The vaccine, Jynneos, has never been widely used in response to an outbreak like this, and the government will track how well it’s working, Walensky said.
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