A tiny mountain-dwelling wren was the surprise winner Monday of New Zealand’s controversial bird of the year competition, which even had Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in a flap.   

The piwauwau rock wren punched above its 20-gram weight, flying under the radar to win the annual contest ahead of popular fellow native contenders, the little penguin and the kea.   

Fans of the wren set up a Facebook page to help the outsider soar up the final rankings when the fortnight-long poll closed Monday.   

“It’s not the size, it’s the underbird you vote for that counts,” wrote one supporter.   

The annual competition ruffled voters’ feathers in years past after a native bat was allowed to enter, then won, the 2021 title.   

There was also outcry this year after the flightless kakapo — a twice previous winner dubbed the world’s fattest parrot — was barred from running to give others a chance.   

The annual avian beauty contest run by environmental group Forest and Bird is popular with New Zealanders, including the country’s top politicians.   

The leader of the opposition, Christopher Luxon, took to Twitter — where else? — over the weekend to endorse the wrybill, a river bird with a distinctive bent beak.   

On Monday, New Zealand’s prime minister was momentarily ruffled live on air when asked if she had voted for her favorite bird.   

“No I haven’t yet — you can’t just chuck a controversial question at me without a warning!,” Ardern said with a smile.   

New Zealand’s leader revealed she will “always and forever” be loyal to the black petrel, which only breeds on the North Island but can fly as far as Ecuador, and she hopes the 2023 competition “will be its year”.  
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In Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where health workers are trying to vaccinate children to eliminate endemic poliovirus, six-year-old Ismail is partially paralyzed on his left side, due to the disabling disease. His father says it is devastating news for the family. Abu Baker Alizai has the report, narrated by Roshan Noorzai.
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Former CIA disguise expert Robert Barron has been making prosthetics for people affected by injury or disease for almost three decades. Karina Bafradzhian talked to Barron about his work.
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Thousands of demonstrators defied an official ban to march Saturday against the deployment of new water storage infrastructure for agricultural irrigation in western France, some clashing with police.

Clashes between paramilitary gendarmes and demonstrators erupted with Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin reporting that 61 officers had been hurt, 22 seriously.

“Bassines Non Merci,” which organized the protest, said around 30 demonstrators had been injured. Of them, 10 had to seek medical treatment and three were hospitalized.

The group brings together environmental associations, trade unions and anti-capitalist groups against what it claims is a “water grab” by the “agro-industry” in western France.

Local officials said six people were arrested during the protest and that 4,000 people had turned up for the banned demonstration. Organizers put the turnout at 7,000.

The deployment of giant water “basins” is underway in the village of Sainte-Soline, in the Deux-Sevres department, to irrigate crops, which opponents claim distorts access to water amid drought conditions.

Around 1,500 police were deployed, according to the prefect of the Deux-Sevres department Emmanuelle Dubee.

Dubee said Friday she had wanted to limit possible “acts of violence,” referring to the clashes between demonstrators and security forces that marred a previous rally in March. 

The Sainte-Soline water reserve is the second of 16 such installations, part of a project developed by a group of 400 farmers organized in a water cooperative to significantly reduce water usage in the summer.

The open-air craters, covered with a plastic tarpaulin, are filled by pumping water from surface groundwater in winter and can store up to 650,000 square meters of water. 

This water is used for irrigation in summer, when rainfall is scarcer. 

Opponents claim the “mega-basins” are wrongly reserved for large export-oriented grain farms and deprive the community of access to essential resources.
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Fishing regulators and the seafood industry are grappling with the possibility that some once-profitable species that have declined with climate change might not come back.

Several marketable species harvested by U.S. fishermen are the subject of quota cuts, seasonal closures and other restrictions as populations have fallen and waters have warmed. In some instances, such as the groundfishing industry for species like flounder in the Northeast, the changing environment has made it harder for fish to recover from years of overfishing that already taxed the population.

Officials in Alaska have canceled the fall Bristol Bay red king crab harvest and winter snow crab harvest, dealing a blow to the Bering Sea crab industry that is sometimes worth more than $200 million a year, as populations have declined in the face of warming waters. The Atlantic cod fishery, once the lifeblood industry of New England, is now essentially shuttered. But even with depleted populations imperiled by climate change, it’s rare for regulators to completely shut down a fishery, as they’re considering doing for New England shrimp.

The Northern shrimp, once a seafood delicacy, has been subject to a fishing moratorium since 2014. Scientists believe warming waters are wiping out their populations and they won’t be coming back. So the regulatory Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is now considering making that moratorium permanent, essentially ending the centuries-old harvest of the shrimp.

It’s a stark siren for several species caught by U.S. fishermen that regulators say are on the brink. Others include softshell clams, winter flounder, Alaskan snow crabs and Chinook salmon.

Exactly how many fisheries are threatened principally by warming waters is difficult to say, but additional cutbacks and closures are likely in the future as climate change intensifies, said Malin Pinsky, director of the graduate program in ecology and evolution at Rutgers University.

“This pattern of climate change and how it ripples throughout communities and coastal economies is something we need to get used to,” Pinsky said. “Many years are pushing us outside of what we have experienced historically, and we are going to continue to observe these further novel conditions as years go by.”

While it’s unclear whether climate change has ever been the dominant factor in permanently shutting down a U.S. fishery, global warming is a key reason several once-robust fisheries are in increasingly poor shape and subject to more aggressive regulation in recent years. Warming temperatures introduce new predators, cause species to shift their center of population northward, or make it harder for them to grow to maturity, scientists said.

In the case of the Northern shrimp, scientists and regulators said at a meeting in August that the population has not rebounded after nearly a decade of no commercial fishing. Regulators will revisit the possibility of a permanent moratorium this winter, said Dustin Colson Leaning, a fishery management plan coordinator with the Atlantic States commission. Another approach could be for the commission to relinquish control of the fishery, he said.

The shrimp prefer cold temperatures, yet the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than most of the world’s oceans. Scientists say warming waters have also moved new predators into the gulf.

But in Maine, where the cold-water shrimp fishery is based, fishermen have tried to make the case that abundance of the shrimp is cyclical and any move to shutter the fishery for good is premature.

“I want to look into the future of this. It’s not unprecedented to have a loss of shrimp. We went through it in the ’50s, we went through it in the ’70s, we had a tough time in the ’90s,” said Vincent Balzano, a shrimp fisherman from Portland. “They came back.”

Another jeopardized species is winter flounder, once highly sought by southern New England fishermen. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has described the fish as “significantly below target population levels” on Georges Bank, a key fishing ground. Scientists with University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management wrote that the fish have struggled to reach maturity “due to increased predation related to warming winters” in a report last year.

On the West Coast, Chinook salmon face an extinction risk due to climate change, NOAA has reported. Drought has worsened the fish’s prospects in California, at the southern end of its range, scientists have said.

Fishermen on the East Coast, from Virginia to Maine, have dug softshell clams from tidal mud for centuries, and they’re a staple of seafood restaurants. They’re used for chowder and fried clam dishes and are sometimes called “steamers.”

But the clam harvest fell from about 3.5 million pounds (1.6 million kilograms) in 2010 to 2.1 million pounds (950,000 kilograms) in 2020 as the industry has contended with an aging workforce and increasing competition from predators such as crabs and worms. Scientists have linked the growing predator threat to warming waters.

The 2020 haul in Maine, which harvests the most clams, was the smallest in more than 90 years. And the 2021 catch still lagged behind typical hauls from the 2000s, which were consistently close to 2 million pounds (907,000 kilograms) or more.

Predicting what the clam harvest will look like in 2022 is difficult, but the industry remains threatened by the growing presence of invasive green crabs, said Brian Beal a professor of marine ecology at the University of Maine at Machias. The crabs, which eat clams, are native to Europe and arrived in the U.S. about 200 years ago and have grown in population as waters have warmed.

“There seem to have been, relative to 2020, a ton more green crabs that settled,” Beal said. “That’s not a good omen.”

One challenge of managing fisheries that are declining due to warming waters is that regulators rely on historical data to set quotas and other regulations, said Lisa Kerr, a senior research scientist with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland, Maine. Scientists and regulators are learning that some fish stocks just aren’t capable of returning to the productivity level of 40 years ago, she said.

Back then, U.S. fishermen typically caught more than 100 million pounds (45.4 million kilograms) of Atlantic cod per year. Now, they usually catch less than 2 million pounds (907,000 kilograms), as overfishing and environmental changes have prevented the population from returning to historical levels.

The future of managing species that are in such bad shape might require accepting the possibility that fully rebuilding them is impossible, Kerr said.

“It’s really a resetting of the expectations,” she said. “We’re starting to see targets that are more in line, but under a lower overall target.”
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Marine archaeologists in Sweden say they have found the sister vessel of a famed 17th century warship that sank on its maiden voyage and is now on display in a popular Stockholm museum.

The wreck of the royal warship Vasa was raised in 1961, remarkably well preserved, after more than 300 years underwater in the Stockholm harbor. Visitors can admire its intricate wooden carvings at the Vasa Museum, one of Stockholm’s top tourist attractions.

Its sister warship, Applet (Apple), was built around the same time as the Vasa on the orders of Swedish King Gustav II Adolf.

Unlike the Vasa, which keeled over and sank just minutes after leaving port in 1628, the sister ship was launched without incident the following year and remained in active service for three decades. It was sunk in 1659 to become part of an underwater barrier mean to protect the Swedish capital from enemy fleets.

The exact location of the wreck was lost over time but marine archaeologists working for Vrak — the Museum of Wrecks in Stockholm — say they found a large shipwreck in December 2021 near the island of Vaxholm, just east of the capital.

“Our pulses spiked when we saw how similar the wreck was to Vasa,” said Jim Hansson, one of the archaeologists. “Both the construction and the powerful dimensions seemed very familiar.”

Experts were able to confirm that it was the long-lost Applet by analyzing its technical details, wood samples and archival data, the museum said in a statement on Monday.

Parts of the ship’s sides had collapsed onto the seabed but the hull was otherwise preserved up to a lower gun deck. The fallen sides had gun ports on two different levels, which was seen as evidence of a warship with two gun decks.

A second, more thorough dive was made in the spring of 2022, and details were found that had so far only been seen in Vasa. Several samples were taken and analyses made, and it emerged that the oak for the ship’s timber was felled in 1627 in the same place as Vasa’s timber just a few years earlier.

Experts say the Vasa sunk because it lacked the ballast to counterweigh its heavy guns. Applet was built broader than Vasa and with a slightly different hull shape. Still, ships that size were difficult to maneuver and Applet probably remained idle for most of its service, though it sailed toward Germany with more than 1,000 people on board during the Thirty Years’ War, the Vrak museum said.

No decision has been taken on whether to raise the ship, which would be a costly and complicated endeavor.
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YouTube announced Thursday it wants to help people make informed health care decisions by allowing more medical sources to share videos on its platform.  

“At YouTube, we’re working to make it easier for people to find authoritative information to help answer their questions, and we’re putting health professionals at the core of our efforts to connect people with helpful content,” the company said on its website. 

Doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals can now apply to have their video channels certified to participate in You Tube’s health features, something that, until now, has only been available to educational institutions, public health departments, hospitals and government entities.

“The reality is that the majority of healthcare decisions are made outside the doctor’s office, in the everyday lives of our patients,” YouTube said.  “That’s why YouTube Health has been working on additional ways to help doctors, nurses, mental health professionals and health care information providers to bring high quality health information into the spaces that people visit throughout their day – like their favorite video-sharing app. 

“This new step will allow us to expand to include high quality information from a wider group of health care channels,” the company said.

YouTube has been criticized in the past for being home to some misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines but has since banned the misleading information.
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Hawaii officials are warning residents of the Big Island that the world’s largest active volcano, Mauna Loa, is sending signals that it may erupt.

Scientists say an eruption isn’t imminent, but they are on alert because of a recent spike in earthquakes at the volcano’s summit. Experts say it would take just a few hours for lava to reach homes closest to vents on the volcano, which last erupted in 1984.

Hawaii’s civil defense agency is holding meetings across the island to educate residents about how to prepare for a possible emergency. They recommend having a “go” bag with food, identifying a place to stay once they leave home and making a plan for reuniting with family members.

“Not to panic everybody, but they have to be aware of that you live on the slopes of Mauna Loa. There’s a potential for some kind of lava disaster,” said Talmadge Magno, the administrator for Hawaii County Civil Defense.

The volcano makes up 51% of the Hawaii Island landmass, so a large portion of the island has the potential to be affected by an eruption, Magno said.

There’s been a surge of development on the Big Island in recent decades — its population has more than doubled to 200,000 today from 92,000 in 1980 — and many newer residents weren’t around when Mauna Loa last erupted 38 years ago. All the more reason why Magno said officials are spreading the word about the science of the volcano and urging people to be prepared.

Mauna Loa, rising 13,679 feet (4,169 meters) above sea level, is the much larger neighbor to Kilauea volcano, which erupted in a residential neighborhood and destroyed 700 homes in 2018. Some of its slopes are much steeper than Kilauea’s so when it erupts, its lava can flow much faster.

During a 1950 eruption, the mountain’s lava traveled 15 miles (24 kilometers) to the ocean in less than three hours.

The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, which is part of the U.S. Geological Survey, said Mauna Loa has been in a state of “heightened unrest” since the middle of last month when the number of summit earthquakes jumped from 10 to 20 per day to 40 to 50 per day.

Scientists believe more earthquakes are occurring because more magma is flowing into Mauna Loa’s summit reservoir system from the hot spot under the earth’s surface that feeds molten rock to Hawaii’s volcanoes.

The temblors have declined in frequency in recent days but could rise again.

More than 220 people attended a community meeting last weekend that county civil defense officials held in Ocean View, a neighborhood that lava could reach in hours if molten rock erupts through vents on Mauna Loa’s southwest flank.

Bob Werner, an Ocean View resident who didn’t attend the meeting, said it’s wise to be aware of a possible eruption but not to fear it. He’s not concerned that the neighborhood would be completely cut off, if lava flows across the only road connecting it to the bigger towns of Kailua-Kona and Hilo, where many people do their shopping.

The “greater concern is it will be extremely annoying to drive an extra hour or two hours to get the same stuff,” he said.

Ryan Williams, the owner of the Margarita Village bar in Hilo, said the volcanic unrest wasn’t worrying customers who are used to warnings.

There could still be a heightened sense of urgency since officials have been holding town hall meetings, urging people to prepare.

“But everything I’ve read or heard, they trying to kind of assure people that conditions have not changed,” Williams said. “There’s no imminent eruption, but just to be alert.”

Magno said his agency is talking to residents now because communities closest to vents likely wouldn’t have enough time to learn how to respond and prepare once the observatory raises its alert level to “watch,” which means an eruption is imminent.

The current alert level is “advisory” meaning the volcano is showing signs of unrest yet there’s no indication an eruption is likely or certain.

Residents in other parts of the island would have more time to react.

Lava from Mauna Loa’s northeast flank could take days or weeks to reach residential communities. That’s because the mountain’s slopes on that side are relatively gentle and because towns are farther from volcanic vents.

Frank Trusdell, research geologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, said all of Mauna Loa’s eruptions in recorded history have started in its summit crater. About half of them stayed there, while the other half later spewed lava from vents lower down the mountain.

Lava erupting from the summit generally doesn’t travel far enough to reach residential areas.

Mauna Loa has erupted 33 times since 1843. It last erupted in 1984 when lava flowed down its eastern flank only to stop 4.5 miles (7.2 kilometers) short of Hilo, the Big Island’s most populous town.

Mauna Loa also has a history of disgorging huge volumes of lava.

In the 1950 eruption, which lasted for 23 days, Mauna Loa released 1,000 cubic meters (1,307 cubic yards) of lava per second. In contrast, Kilauea released 300 cubic meters (392 cubic yards) per second in 2018.

The earthquakes could continue for a while before any eruption: increased seismic activity lasted for a year before a 1975 eruption and a year-and-a-half before the 1984 one. Alternatively, the temblors could subside and Mauna Loa may not erupt this time.

Trusdell said residents should look at his agency’s maps and learn how quickly lava may show up in their neighborhood. He also urged people living in one of the short-notice areas to pay attention if the summit turns red.

“All you got to do is look up there and see the glow. You grab your stuff, throw it in the car and drive. Go!” he said.

They can always go home after if the lava ultimately doesn’t flow into their neighborhood, he said.
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Tuberculosis case numbers increased from 2019 to 2021, reversing years of progress as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted access to treatment and testing, the World Health Organization said Thursday. 

“For the first time in nearly two decades, WHO is reporting an increase in the number of people falling ill with TB and the drug-resistant tuberculosis, alongside an increase in TB related deaths,” said Tereza Kasaeva, director of the U.N. health agency’s global TB program. 

A WHO report released Thursday stated that more than 10 million people got tuberculosis in 2021, a 4.5% increase from 2020. Roughly 450,000 cases involved individuals infected with the drug-resistant TB strain, a 3% increase from 2020 to 2021. Most of these cases were reported in India, Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines.

The COVID-19 pandemic “continues to have a damaging impact on access to TB diagnosis and treatment,” WHO said. COVID-19 restrictions, such as lockdowns and physical distancing, resulted in fewer people being diagnosed and getting the necessary treatment. With fewer people being diagnosed and treated for TB, more patients unknowingly spread the disease to others. As a result, more than a decade of progress was lost, said Dr. Mel Spigelman, president of the nonprofit TB Alliance. 

Tuberculosis is caused by bacteria that attack the lungs. The disease is mainly spread through the air and, after COVID-19, tuberculosis is the world’s deadliest infectious disease. It primarily affects adults, particularly those who are malnourished or immunocompromised, in developing countries. More than 95% of cases are in developing countries.

The downturn of the global economy during the pandemic worsened the problem, as families faced unbearable costs due to their treatment, especially in developing countries. 

Dr. Hannah Spencer, with Doctors Without Borders in South Africa, suggested lowering the prices of tuberculosis treatment to no more than $500 to help low-income patients. WHO also suggested that more countries should cover the cost of TB diagnosis and treatment. 

“If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that with solidarity, determination, innovation and the equitable use of tools, we can overcome severe health threats,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a news release Thursday. “Let’s apply those lessons to tuberculosis. It is time to put a stop to this long-time killer.” 

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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A Nigerian robotics engineer has designed a bra she says can save lives by helping to detect breast cancer early. For VOA, Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.
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How satellite imagery and artificial intelligence helped the government of Togo deliver COVID-19 relief to its neediest citizens.
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The world’s first reusable satellite is set to launch next month. Plus, communication satellites galore, and the U.S. military test-launches weaponry that shatters the speed of sound. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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GENEVA – A U.N. report warns the window for preventing a climate catastrophe is fast closing. The U.N. Environment Program’s latest Emissions Gap Report urges unprecedented cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and a rapid transformation of societies to head off the worst.

The U.N. report finds the world is falling far short of the Paris climate goals agreement, with no credible pathway for limiting a temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said progress since last year’s climate change conference, COP 26 in Glasgow, Scotland, has been woefully inadequate. She said nations have failed to deliver on their pledges for greater emissions cuts.

She noted greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by 45 percent by 2030 to stop climate change. However, instead of stabilizing global temperatures at 1.5 degrees above the pre-industrial level, she said temperatures will likely rise 2.4 to 2.6 degrees by 2100.

“We are sliding from climate crisis to climate disaster. This report is sending us a very, very clear message. If we are serious about climate change, we need to kickstart a system-wide transformation now. We need a root and branch redesign of the electricity sector, of the transport sector, of the building sector, and food systems.”

Additionally, she said financial systems must be reformed so they can bankroll the required transformations. She says incremental changes no longer are an option. Bold action must be taken now.

Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization Peterri Talaas called the transformational changes doable. He noted the IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, earlier this year reported that prices of climate-friendly energy solutions have been dropping.

“Nowadays, it is cheaper to invest in solar or wind energy as compared to the fossil energy. And the good news is also that 32 countries have reduced their emissions during the past 15 years, whereas their economies have been growing. So, there is not an automatic connection between economic growth and emissions growth.”

He mentioned European countries, the United States, Japan, and Singapore as some of the countries that have managed to grow their economies while reducing emissions.

Environmental experts estimate a global transformation to a low-emissions economy is expected to require investments of at least $4 trillion to $6 trillion a year. They are urging nations attending next week’s COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to agree to foot the bill and to up their pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
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The charity Doctors Without Borders said Thursday that Kenya’s Dadaab Refugee Complex faces a high risk of measles and cholera outbreaks as thousands of new refugees arrive from areas of Somalia where the diseases are circulating. 

More than 233,000 refugees live in three overcrowded camps in the complex.  

Doctors Without Borders, best known by its French acronym MSF, reported a sharp rise since January in the number of people fleeing to Kenya to escape drought, hunger and violence. 

Many of the new arrivals are from southern Somalia, where measles and cholera outbreaks recently have occurred, the charity said.  

MSF’s deputy program manager for Kenya, Adrian Guadarrama, said Thursday in Geneva that many are being received by refugee communities inside camps, but many more are living in very poor conditions on the outskirts of the camps. 

Last week, he said, MSF teams recorded three cases of measles and two suspected cases of cholera in Dagahaley, one of Dadaab’s three refugee camps. 

“This should be an alarm for all the actors and stakeholders involved in the response in Dadaab. Because we know that just one case of any of these diseases can cause a full-blown outbreak very quickly, affecting not only the refugee community, but also the host community,” Guadarrama said. 

Kenya’s Health Ministry last week issued a cholera alert following confirmation of 61 cases in six counties. 

Guadarrama said Kenya stopped registering new arrivals in Dadaab in 2015.  

Unregistered refugees, he said, cannot get basic services and assistance. He said clean drinking water is scarce, and toilets and handwashing points lacking. These conditions, he said, make the unregistered refugees highly vulnerable to life-threatening diseases. 

Guadarrama said the need for measles and cholera vaccination campaigns is urgent, but that devising a strategy is complex. Some people are scattered in the outskirts, he said, while others are inside Dagahaley camp. 

“We talk about a camp of 115,000. So, just to identify them is quite a challenge,” he said. “And this is why having screening, or a reception center or a registration center — that would be ideal — would allow us to cope with those activities and provide access to basic services including vaccination, for example.” 

Guadarrama said the humanitarian situation in the camps and in the surrounding communities is not yet at the breaking point and there is still time to avoid an emergency in a long and protracted crisis. 

 
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