At a rally Friday in the southern city of Blantyre, unemployed nurses called for more jobs and gave Malawi’s president 14 days to help them find new opportunities for work.

Frank Kamwendo, the chairperson of concerned nurses, said the demonstrations were a last resort after several meetings with Malawi government officials.

“We have been trying our level best to discuss with the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of local government to recruit more than 2,260 nursing officers,” said Kamwendo. “Unfortunately, these ministries have been telling us that there are no funds for recruitment.”

Kamwendo said the nurses have also tried in vain to get the government to help them work in other countries.

Thousands without jobs

Government statistics show that Malawi has about 3,000 unemployed nurses and 160 vacant positions for nurses in public medical facilities.

Last year, Malawi’s government stopped a plan by the National Organization of Nurses and Midwives that could have helped some 2,000 unemployed nurses find work in the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Ministry of Labor authorities said the organization has no legal mandate to export labor.

Shouts Simez, the president of the National Organization of Nurses and Midwives in Malawi, told VOA that there are now positive signs that the situation will soon be better for unemployed nurses.

“I am happy to share that the approach has changed now because now it’s from the Ministry of Labor to the Ministry of Trade and Industry,” said Simeza. “So, the Ministry of Trade and Industry is looking at exporting services. Nursing is one of the services that can be exported.”

Simeza said his organization is part of the group including the Ministry of Trade that is working on a legal framework for exporting services.

“When the Ministry of Labor said, ‘No you cannot do this,’ I ended up agreeing because we did not have the guidelines, meaning that if we had to send nurses or midwives to work in the diaspora, they were not going to be safe and protected,” said Simeza. “That’s now where the issues of exploitation were going to come in.”

Protesters threaten to stage vigils

However, the demonstrators delivered a petition to the office of a Blantyre district commissioner and threatened to hold vigils at the State House to pressure authorities into action.

Director for the Blantyre District Council, Rejison Nkolobwe, promised to deliver the petition to the responsible authorities for action.

“Our duty as DC for Blantyre is to take this petition and forward it to the relevant authorities, which is the office of president and cabinet,” said Nkolobwe.

While government authorities have not formally responded to the unemployed nurses’ demands, Simeza said he hopes the demonstration will help push the government to fast-track the process of putting in place guidelines on labor migration.
…

A study published Friday indicates 1 in 10 babies around the world are born prematurely — before 37 weeks — leading to deaths, disability and chronic illnesses.

The study was conducted by the World Health Organization, the U.N. Children’s Fund, UNICEF and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The study monitored global births between 2010 and 2020 and documented global, regional and country estimates and trends. It found 13.4 million babies — 1 in 10 of all live births — were born prematurely in 2020, with large disparities between regions and nations.

It showed about 65% of 2020 preterm births worldwide occurred in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia, where more than 13% of all births were preterm. The rates in the most affected countries — Bangladesh, 16.2%; Malawi 14.5%; and Pakistan, 14.3% — were three or four times higher than those in the world’s least affected countries — Serbia, 3.8%; Moldova, 4%; and Kazakhstan, 4.7%.

The study indicates premature birth is not limited to low- and middle-income countries, with data showing preterm rates of 10% or higher in wealthier nations such as Greece, with 11.6%, and the United States, at 10%. No region saw a significant reduction in premature births during the 10-year period.

The WHO said that premature birth is a leading cause of death among young children, and that those who survive are more susceptible to disabilities, developmental issues and chronic illness as adults.

The U.N. agency called for greater global investment in prevention and ensuring access to quality health care.

The study, titled “National, regional, and global estimates of preterm birth in 2020, with trends from 2010: a systematic analysis,” was published in the British medical journal Lancet.
…

AT&T and Gallaudet University have developed a football helmet for players who are deaf or hard of hearing and communicate using American Sign Language. 

The company and the Washington-based school for students who are deaf or hard of hearing unveiled the new technology Thursday. 

It allows a coach to call a play on a tablet from the sideline that then shows up visually on a small display screen inside the quarterback’s helmet. Gallaudet, which competes in Division III, was cleared by the NCAA to use the helmet in its game on Saturday at home against Hilbert. 

Gallaudet coach Chuck Goldstein said he thinks the helmet “will change football.” 

“We work out the same way as every other college football program, we practice the same way, we compete the same way,” Goldstein said. “The difference between coaching a hearing team compared to a Deaf team is first the communication.” 

The final product is the result of almost two years of communication between the team and AT&T, which came up with the concept as a way to close the inclusion gap for the Deaf community with its 5G network. 

“We came up with ideas on how to make this helmet more effective [and] we’d interact with [players and coaches],” said Corey Anthony, AT&T senior VP of networking engineering and operations. “They would give us feedback. We’d go back, make changes, work on it. It’s just a beautiful relationship that we have with that university.” 

Anthony said the company also leaned on employees who are deaf or hard of hearing during the process. 

“This is probably one of the more sort of exciting and enriching projects that we’ve worked on in a very long time,” he said.
…

All About America explores American culture, politics, trends, history, ideals and places of interest.

Money may not buy happiness, but a new analysis of the happiest and unhappiest U.S. states suggests the lack of cash can contribute to a person’s misery.

“The thing about money and happiness is that being increasingly and increasingly wealthy doesn’t make you more and more happy, but experiencing poverty definitely can make you unhappy,” says Miriam Liss, professor of psychology at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

That’s because basic needs of shelter, food, clothing, safety, health care and transportation are hard to meet when people aren’t financially secure, she adds.

In order to assess levels of happiness in all 50 states, personal finance company WalletHub looked at three key factors: emotional and physical well-being, work environment, and community and environment. Utah, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota and New Jersey were the happiest states, according to WalletHub’s analysis.

Liss thinks it makes sense that Utah emerged as the happiest state, where about 60% of its population identify as Mormon.

“I’m not surprised by that, because I do think there is an association between religious affiliation and happiness,” Liss says. “And that’s largely because of the community and the connection that people experience if you feel nurtured and loved by your community.”

WalletHub identifies the unhappiest states as Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee and West Virginia.

“It’s not surprising to me. These are poor states,” Liss says. She adds that in order to be happy, a person must have a sense of autonomy, feel competent and have strong and meaningful relationships with others.

“You need enough money to be secure and able to meet both those basic human needs of housing and safety,” Liss says. “But also the psychological needs of the time to build relationships, the ability to engage in work that’s meaningful — and not what you hate just to pay the bills — and the ability to have some autonomy and flexibility over how you spend your day.”

The analysis found that only half of Americans feel “very satisfied” with their personal lives. Liss says there’s a genetic component to happiness that people can’t change, but that much of happiness – about 40 percent – is influenced by engaging in what she calls “intentional” activities.

“Really paying attention and enjoying when we eat, when we’re in a beautiful location, enhances mindfulness,” she says. “Practicing gratitude is a really powerful, intentional activity that has some really strong effects. … Community connection and kindness kind of go hand in hand, lots of volunteering, performing acts of service, getting involved in the community. Those are all things that can increase your happiness.”

Moving to one of the happiest states won’t automatically make you happy, she says, unless your most critical needs are met.

“Live somewhere where you can afford your lifestyle, because if you can’t, that really limits your autonomy,” Liss says. “You also want to live in a place where you have a meaningful job which allows you to feel competence and ability. … But I also think it’s really important to live somewhere where you can develop true and meaningful connections and relationships with other people.”
…

Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant said it began releasing a second batch of treated radioactive wastewater into the sea on Thursday after the first round of discharges ended smoothly.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings said workers activated a pump to dilute the treated water with large amounts of seawater, slowly sending the mixture into the ocean through an underground tunnel.

The wastewater discharges, which are expected to continue for decades, have been strongly opposed by fishing groups and neighboring countries including South Korea, where hundreds of people staged protest rallies. China banned all imports of Japanese seafood, badly hurting Japanese seafood producers and exporters.

The plant’s first wastewater release began Aug. 24 and ended Sept. 11. During that release, TEPCO said it discharged 7,800 tons of treated water from 10 tanks. In the second discharge, TEPCO plans to release another 7,800 tons of treated water into the Pacific Ocean over 17 days.

About 1.34 million tons of radioactive wastewater is stored in about 1,000 tanks at the plant. It has accumulated since the plant was crippled by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

TEPCO and the government say discharging the water into the sea is unavoidable because the tanks will reach capacity early next year and space at the plant will be needed for its decommissioning, which is expected to take decades.

They say the water is treated to reduce radioactive materials to safe levels, and then is diluted with seawater to make it much safer than international standards.

Some scientists say, however, that the continuing release of low-level radioactive materials is unprecedented and needs to be monitored closely.

Japan’s government has set up a relief fund to help find new markets and reduce the impact of China’s seafood ban. Measures also include the temporary purchase, freezing and storage of seafood and promotion of seafood sales at home.

Cabinet ministers have traveled to Fukushima to sample local seafood and promote its safety.

TEPCO is tasked with providing compensation for reputational damage to the region’s seafood caused by the wastewater release. It started accepting applications this week and immediately received hundreds of inquiries. Most of the damage claims are linked to China’s seafood ban and excess supply at home causing price declines, TEPCO said.

Agriculture Minister Ichiro Miyashita promoted Japanese scallops at a food fair in Malaysia on Wednesday on the sidelines of a regional farm ministers’ meeting.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has reviewed the safety of the wastewater release and concluded that if carried out as planned, it would have a negligible impact on the environment, marine life and human health.
…

More than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente health care staff across the U.S. began a three-day strike Wednesday, which will likely hold up appointments, test results and prescriptions at locations across the nation.

Kaiser Permanente, a California-based chain of hospitals, pharmacies and clinics, serves nearly 13 million Americans.

The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which represents about 85,000 company workers, announced a three-day strike in California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington state, and a daylong strike in Virginia and Washington, D.C., after contract negotiations stalled overnight.

More than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente employees are expected to join in.

Talks restarted Wednesday.

A key complaint from those on the picket line is that understaffing is inundating workers and delaying vital care.

“We’re striking for our patients,” said Mikki Fletchall, a licensed vocational nurse at a Kaiser clinic in Camarillo, California.

Kaiser Permanente promised that its 39 hospitals, including emergency rooms, would stay open as doctors and many nurses are not picketing. But non-emergency procedures could be delayed and wait times on customer service calls could soar.

Kaiser workers’ unions demanded a $25 hourly minimum wage in August followed by increases of 7% in the next two years and 6.25% in the two years after that.

Union members say understaffing is helping Kaiser Permanente reap massive profits at the cost of patients’ health, accusing executives of bargaining in bad faith.

Kaiser proposed minimum hourly wages of $21 to $23 in 2024.

Since 2022, Kaiser has hired 51,000 employees and is looking to add 10,000 more before the end of the month.

The hospital system’s operating revenue was $25 billion in this year’s second quarter, a 7% jump from previous figures. Kaiser credited shrewd investments for its $2.1 billion profit that quarter, which helped the company rebound from a $1.3 billion hit last year.

But the health care giant is still fending off national labor shortages and rising inflation, the company said.

The strike comes in a year that saw laborers in entertainment, hospitality and transportation picket for more competitive contracts. In late September, President Joe Biden joined autoworkers in Michigan on the picket line. Political commentators say his action has emboldened unionists across the nation.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press. 
…

France has urged the public not to worry about reports of bedbug outbreaks on public transportation in Paris and throughout the country.

At least 37 sightings of bedbugs on public transportation have been reported over the past few weeks by national rail operator SNCF, with a dozen additional reports made to Paris public transport operator RATP.

French Transport Minister Clément Beaune said that each report had been checked out, and that none were proved to be true.

“When there is a problem, we deal with it. We won’t deny it,” Beaune said. “There is no outbreak of bedbugs in public transportation.”

French media have reported extensively about bedbugs on trains and in cinemas, and the government worries about the impact on tourism and the Paris Olympics, which start in less than a year.

Despite the denials, France will be taking preventative measures against a potential outbreak, using sniffing dogs on trains to detect the pests.

Beaune also plans to meet with pest control companies to preemptively come up with a solution if bedbugs were to infest public transportation.

He has promised transparency and said he would publish data every three months citing all reports and confirmed bedbug infestations.

On a radio spot Tuesday, French Health Minister Aurelien Rousseau told the French public there’s “no reason for panic” about “widespread” reports of bedbugs in Paris.

According to a report Tuesday by CNN, Marie Effroy, head of the Paris-based National Institute for the Study and Control of Bedbugs, said the level of bedbug infestation in France, which tends to spike toward the end of each summer season, is worse than previous years but treatable.

Some information in this report came from Reuters.
…

Scientists Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for “the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots,” which illuminate computer monitors and television screens and are used by doctors to map tumors.

“The Nobel Laureates … have succeeded in producing particles so small that their properties are determined by quantum phenomena. The particles, which are called quantum dots, are now of great importance in nanotechnology,” the Nobel Committee for Chemistry said in a statement.

“Researchers believe that in the future they could contribute to flexible electronics, tiny sensors, thinner solar cells and encrypted quantum communication.”

Nanoparticles and quantum dots are used in LED-lights and can also be used to guide surgeons while removing cancer tissue.

The more than century-old prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and is worth 11 million Swedish crowns ($997,959).

Earlier on Wednesday, the academy appeared to have inadvertently published the names of the three scientists it said had won this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Bawendi is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Brus is professor emeritus at Columbia University and Ekimov works for Nanocrystals Technology Inc.

Brus was hired by AT&T Bell Labs in 1972 where he spent 23 years, devoting much of the time to studying nanocrystals.

Bawendi was born in Paris and grew up in France, Tunisia, and the U.S. Bawendi did his postdoctoral research under Brus then joined MIT in 1990 and became professor in 1996.

Ekimov was born in the Soviet Union worked for the Vavilov State Optical Institute before moving to the United States. In 1999, Ekimov was named chief scientist at Nanocrystals Technology Inc.

The third of this year’s crop of awards, the chemistry Nobel follows those for medicine and physics announced earlier this week.

Established in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and chemist Alfred Nobel, the prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace have been awarded since 1901 with a few interruptions, primarily due to the world wars.

The economics prize is a later addition funded by the Swedish central bank.

While the chemistry awards are sometimes overshadowed by the physics prize and its famous winners such as Albert Einstein, chemistry laureates include many scientific greats, including radioactivity pioneer Ernest Rutherford and Marie Curie, who also won the physics prize.

Last year’s chemistry award went to scientists Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless for pioneering work in “click chemistry,” discovering reactions that let molecules snap together to create new compounds.
…

Wearing an “I Love Pandas” T-shirt and clutching a panda-covered diary, 10-year-old Kelsey Lambert bubbled with excitement as she glimpsed the real thing. She and her mother, Alison, had made a special trip from San Antonio, Texas, just to watch the National Zoo’s furry rock stars  munch bamboo and roll on the grass. 

“It felt completely amazing,” Kelsey said on Friday. “My mom has always promised she would take me one day. So, we had to do it now that they’re going away.” 

The National Zoo’s three giant pandas — Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and their cub Xiao Qi Ji — are set to return to China in early December with no public signs that the 50-year-old exchange agreement struck by President Richard Nixon will continue. 

National Zoo officials have remained tight-lipped about the prospects of renewing or extending the agreement, and repeated attempts to gain comment on the state of the negotiations did not receive a response. However, the public stance of the zoo has been decidedly pessimistic — treating these remaining months as the end of an era. 

‘Punitive panda diplomacy’

The zoo just finished a weeklong celebration called Panda Palooza: A Giant Farewell. 

The potential end of the National Zoo’s panda era comes amid what veteran China-watchers say is a larger trend. With diplomatic tensions running high between Beijing and a number of Western governments, China appears to be gradually pulling back its pandas from multiple Western zoos as their agreements expire. 

Dennis Wilder, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues, called the trend “punitive panda diplomacy,” noting that two other American zoos have lost their pandas in recent years, while zoos in Scotland and Australia are facing similar departures with no signs of their loan agreements being renewed. 

Beijing currently lends out 65 pandas to 19 countries through “cooperative research programs” with a stated mission to better protect the vulnerable species. The pandas return to China when they reach old age and any cubs born are sent to China around age 3 or 4. 

The San Diego Zoo returned its pandas in 2019, and the last bear at the Memphis, Tennessee, zoo went home earlier this year. The departure of the National Zoo’s bears would mean that the only giant pandas left in America are at the Atlanta Zoo — and that loan agreement expires late next year. 

Wilder said the Chinese possibly could be “trying to send a signal.” 

He cited a litany of Chinese-American flashpoints: sanctions imposed by the U.S. government on prominent Chinese citizens and officials; restrictions on the import of Chinese semiconductors; accusations that Chinese-made fentanyl is flooding American cities; suspicion over Chinese ownership of the social media platform TikTok; and the uproar early this year over the Chinese balloon floating over America. 

Beijing, Wilder said, is convinced that “NATO and the United States are lining up against China.” 

The panda-related tension has even spilled into the hallways of the U.S. Senate. Last week, Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman complained about China buying up American farmland and added, “I mean, they’re taking back our pandas. You know, we should take back all their farmland.” 

Petition to return panda

That animosity has been at least partially shared by the public in China, where anti-American sentiments are on the rise. Those sentiments developed into a perfect panda storm earlier this year when Le Le, a male panda on loan to the zoo in Memphis, died suddenly in February at the age of 24. Pandas generally live 15 to 20 years in the wild, while those in human care often live to be around 30. 

Le Le’s unexpected death prompted an explosion on Chinese social media platforms like Weibo, with widespread allegations that the Memphis Zoo had mistreated the bear and its female companion, Ya Ya. The campaign gained intensity when photos circulated on the Internet of Ya Ya looking dirty and gaunt (by panda standards) with patchy fur. 

An online petition on Change.org demanded Ya Ya be returned immediately, alleging malnourishment and deprivation of proper medical care. Slogans such as “the panda’s life matters” surfaced in China’s social media along with emotional memes pleading with authorities to rescue the bear. One particular meme depicts a miserable-looking Ya Ya gazing at a plane flying overhead with the caption: “Mama, I have worked away from home for 20 years. Have I earned enough for a plane ticket to return home?” 

The heat grew so intense that the Memphis Zoo released a statement responding to what it called “misinformation” about its pandas and stating that Ya Ya has “a chronic skin and fur condition” that “makes her hair look thin and patchy” and that Le Le died of natural causes. 

Even an official Chinese scientific delegation that visited Memphis and announced that Le Le was not mistreated and died of a heart condition failed to quell the outrage. Ya Ya was returned to China on schedule in April when the loan agreement expired and received a celebrity’s welcome at Shanghai’s airport. 

The Chinese government, which gifted the first pair of pandas — Hsing Hsing and Ling Ling — to the U.S., now leases the pandas out for a typical 10-year renewable term. The annual fee ranges from $1 million to $2 million per pair, plus mandatory costs to build and maintain facilities to house the animals. Any cub born to the pandas belongs to the Chinese government but can be leased for an additional fee until it reaches mating age. 

Over the 50 years of American panda loan agreements, the arrangement has hit more than one rough patch. In 2010, Daniel Ashe, then head of the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, traveled to China to help resolve a technical bureaucratic issue that was threatening the renewal of the National Zoo’s agreement. The problem was quickly resolved, and the agreement was extended. 

“But the situation now is completely different,” said Ashe, now CEO of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. “What we’re seeing now is tensions between our governments at a much higher level, and they need to be addressed and resolved at that level.” 

Observers are holding out hope that exactly this sort of 11th-hour high-level intervention will come through. Wilder pointed to the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco in November as a potential forum for President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping to make headlines by breaking the deadlock. And Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Xie Feng has sounded semi-optimistic in his public statements. 

“I will do my utmost to do that, and here, in Aspen, there also will be (pandas),” Xie said during the Aspen Security Forum in July in Aspen, Colorado. 
…

Belize is developing a pilot project to convert the masses of foul-smelling sargassum seaweed swamping its pristine beaches into biofuel, its prime minister said in a statement published by regional Caribbean bloc CARICOM on Tuesday.

Many Caribbean countries depend economically on drawing travelers from around the world to their white sand beaches, but since 2010 heaps of rotting seaweed have been massing on the shores for reasons scientists do not yet fully understand but suspect are related to climate change.

Floating sargassum provides shelter and food for marine animals but as it washes ashore it can smother ecological habitats and begins to rot, becoming harmful to humans.

Belize Prime Minister John Briceno said in the statement that the $50 million facility, the result of a public-private partnership with German company Variodin, would convert municipal solid waste and sargassum into diesel fuel replacements.

The facility could be scaled up with more financing, he said, adding that it would sign a power purchase agreement for energy generated from the plant.

“The sargassum seaweed invasion [is] causing economic, social and environmental wreckage across Belize and the Caribbean,” CARICOM said, citing estimates that the region spends $120 million a year to collect and dispose of it.

“Removal is a vicious cycle of never-ending sargassum, a cycle that removes the seaweed but also the sand, causing further damage to the coastline,” it said, noting that 24 million tons landed on Caribbean coasts last year — damaging tourism, the fishing industry and people’s health.

Briceno said that while complete mitigation is no longer possible, control is within reach.

“Research conducted shows that conversion of sargassum into the Belize energy mix is a viable solution to the problem,” he said, without detailing when the plant would be operational.
…

A charity group in Zimbabwe is raising funds for a basic product that can be critical for people living with albinism – sunscreen. The group, called “The Noble Hands of Zimbabwe,” released a report in September saying 1 in 3 people with albinism in Zimbabwe die of skin cancer before the age of 40, including children as young as 8. Columbus Mavhunga has more from Harare, Zimbabwe. VOA footage by Blessing Chigwenhembe.
…