The American Psychiatric Association says that as elections approach, stress levels go up, regardless of political affiliation. The constant stream of news, stressful arguments and concerns about the country’s future all put pressure on mental well-being. Some psychologists call it election stress disorder. Maxim Adams has the story. Videographer: Andre Sergunin
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Month: October 2024
Cameroon urges awareness of breast cancer’s early stages
YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Humanitarian groups in Cameroon are visiting homes and villages in remote areas this week to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month, advising women to go to hospitals for free screening and treatment.
About 60% of the more than 7,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer in Cameroon this year have died because they were late in getting to hospitals, officials say. Breast cancer deaths are highly unreported because families abandon women to die at home.
Thirty-year-old history student Emilie Nadege Atangana told a group of women and girls at the University of Yaounde 1 campus how she was psychologically and emotionally traumatized after receiving a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2020.
Most of her relatives, friends and fellow students said she would not live long and abandoned her, she said.
Atangana said she found hope when medical staff members of the Yaounde Gynaecology, Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital told her that 90% of early-stage breast cancers are curable.
Cameroonian government officials and humanitarian groups say cancer survivors such as Atangana have been sent to towns and villages as part of activities marking “Pink Month.”
The World Health Organization designates October as Pink Month, a time to teach people about cancer, including early identification and signs and symptoms.
Forty-two-year-old Mesode Ngwese Agbaw, a cancer survivor, said people should stop hiding cancer patients at home to die because of the false belief that cancer cannot be treated.
“You don’t need to hide alone with your pain,” she said. “Share it with somebody, and the people will be ready to help you. I was operated on and after the operation, I have been following treatment and till now, I am fine.”
This year’s theme for the month in Cameroon is “No one Should Face Breast Cancer Alone and Yes, No One is Expected to Fight Breast Cancer Alone.”
Ruth Amin, a public health specialist and project manager at the Yaounde-based Lifafa Research Foundation, said that sending people suspected of having breast cancer to hospitals would prevent many of the deaths caused because the women were abandoned or got to a hospital too late.
“We are calling on the men to support their spouses, to support their mothers, to support their sisters in raising awareness, in carrying them to the hospitals to be clinically examined by professionals,” she said.
“Women should speak up,” she said. “Women should go toward the health facilities to get examined because the earlier they are being diagnosed, the easier it would be for them to be treated.”
Amin spoke to VOA via a messaging app from Buea, a southern commercial city where humanitarian caravans were educating residents about breast cancer on Saturday.
Cameroon says it has equipped all hospitals with qualified medical staff members and equipment to diagnose breast cancer.
The World Health Organization estimates that Cameroon has about 20,000 new cancer cases, including breast cancers, each year, with 65% related deaths.
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Animal lovers try to counter the deadly risk of Chicago high-rises for migrating birds
chicago — With a neon-green net in hand, Annette Prince briskly walks a downtown Chicago plaza at dawn, looking left and right as she goes.
It’s not long before she spots a tiny yellow bird sitting on the concrete. It doesn’t fly away, and she quickly nets the bird, gently places it inside a paper bag and labels the bag with the date, time and place.
“This is a Nashville warbler,” said Prince, director of the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, noting that the bird must have flown into a glass window pane of an adjacent building. “He must only weigh about two pennies. He’s squinting his eyes because his head hurts.”
For rescue groups like the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, this scene plays out hundreds of times each spring and fall after migrating birds fly into homes, small buildings and sometimes Chicago’s skyscrapers and other hulking buildings.
A stark sign of the risks came last fall, when 1,000 migrating birds died on a single night after flying into the glass exterior of the city’s lakefront convention center, McCormick Place. This fall, the facility unveiled new bird-safe window film on one of its glass buildings along the Lake Michigan shore.
The $1.2 million project installed tiny dots on the exterior of the Lakeside Center building, adorning enough glass to cover two football fields.
Doug Stotz, senior conservation ecologist at the nearby Field Museum, hopes the project will be a success. He estimated that just 20 birds have died after flying into the convention’s center’s glass exterior so far this fall, a hopeful sign.
“We don’t have a lot of data since this just started this fall, but at this point, it looks like it’s made a huge difference,” Stotz said.
But for the birds that collide with Chicago buildings, there is a network of people waiting to help. They also are aiming to educate officials and find solutions to improve building design, lighting and other factors in the massive number of bird collision deaths in Chicago and worldwide.
Prince said she and other volunteers walk the streets downtown to document what they can of the birds that are killed and injured.
“We have the combination of the millions of birds that pass through this area because it’s a major migratory path through the United States, on top of the amount of artificial lighting that we put out at night, which is when these birds are traveling and getting confused and attracted to the amount of glass,” Prince said.
Dead birds are often saved for scientific use, including by Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. Rescued birds are taken to local wildlife rehabilitation centers to recover, such as the DuPage Wildlife Conservation Center in suburban Illinois.
On a recent morning, veterinarian Darcy Stephenson at DuPage gave a yellow-bellied sapsucker anesthetic gas before taping its wings open for an X-ray. The bird arrived with a note from a rescue group: “Window collision.”
Examining the results, she found the bird had a broken ulna — a bone in the wing.
The center takes in about 10,000 species of animals annually and 65% of them are avian. Many are victims of window collisions and during peak migration in the fall, several hundred birds can show up in one day.
“The large chunk of these birds do actually survive and make it back into the wild once we’re able to treat them,” said Sarah Reich, head veterinarian at DuPage. “Fractures heal very, very quickly in these guys for shoulder fractures. Soft tissue trauma generally heals pretty well. The challenging cases are going to be the ones where the trauma isn’t as apparent.”
Injured birds go through a process of flight testing, then get a full physical exam by the veterinary staff and are rehabilitated before being set free.
“It’s exciting to be able to get these guys back out into the wild, especially some of those cases that we’re kind of cautiously optimistic about or maybe have an injury that we’ve never treated successfully before,” Reich said, adding that these are the cases “clinic staff get really, really excited about.”
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Argentina’s triple-digit inflation slows, but workers still struggle to pay bills
BUENOS AIRES — Argentina’s triple-digit inflation, among the world’s highest, is starting to slow down but this offers little relief for workers whose salaries have stayed the same while costs of basic goods skyrocketed and the government slashed state subsidies.
“We’re losing track of what’s expensive and what’s cheap,” said university professor Daniel Vazquez while shopping in Buenos Aires. “Prices keep going up and the only thing that isn’t going up is salaries.”
“The gap is very, very big,” he said.
While annualized inflation in September remained well into the triple digits at 209%, month-on-month price hikes slowed to their lowest level since late 2021 at 3.5%, data from the national statistics agency showed on Thursday.
The data landed in line with the forecasts of analysts, who predict that inflation will end 2024 at 124%.
Libertarian President Javier Milei has cut subsidies to sectors such as energy and transportation, while vowing to trim what he calls bloat in the public sector, shuttering some offices and trimming jobs.
“You’ve never seen inflation being fought like this before. It takes a little longer but it’s genuine,” Milei wrote on X after the inflation data was published Thursday.
The tough austerity drive has prolonged a recession and caused poverty rates to surge to around 53%.
Computer programmer Ivan Cortesi, 30, said that while food prices remained similar to last month, utility costs rose significantly.
“This past month there has been a significant increase in all utilities,” he said.
According to the statistics agency, rents as well as water, power and gas prices led monthly inflation, up over 7%, followed by clothing and shoes which rose 6% and education costs that increased over 4%.
Food prices increased just 2% from last month but more than tripled their level from a year ago, while housing and utility costs nearly quadrupled. Cigarettes, alcohol, health care, transport and communications also tracked annual inflation well above 200%.
Milei devalued the local currency when he took office in December, and the sharp spending cuts have particularly hit informal workers, civil servants, pensioners, doctors and teachers.
On Wednesday, Argentina’s Congress failed to overturn Milei’s controversial veto of a law that would have shored up university spending in line with inflation, following mass protests by students and university workers against the measure.
Milei has vowed to veto any law that threatens the fiscal balance.
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What makes a storm a hurricane? The dangers across 5 categories
China tees up fresh spending to boost ailing economy
beijing — China said Saturday it would issue special bonds to help its sputtering economy, signaling a spending spree to bolster banks, shore up the property market and ease local government debt as part of one of its biggest support packages in years.
The plan is part of a series of actions undertaken by Beijing to draw a line under a years-long property sector crisis and chronically low consumption that has plagued the world’s second-biggest economy.
Beijing’s planned special bonds are aimed at boosting the capital available to banks — part of a push to get them lending in the hopes of firing up sluggish consumer spending.
China is also preparing to allow local governments to borrow more to fund the acquisition of unused land for development, aimed at pulling the property market out of a prolonged slump.
No figures were provided on the planned special bonds announced at a highly anticipated news conference by Finance Minister Lan Fo’an and other officials, following a series of steps launched in recent weeks that have included interest rate cuts and liquidity for banks.
But Lan said China still has room “to issue debts and increase the deficit” to fund the new measures.
Officials have been battling to reverse China’s slowdown and achieve a growth target of five percent this year — enviable for many Western countries but a far cry from the double-digit expansion that for years boosted the Asian giant.
On Saturday, Lan said Beijing was “accelerating the use of additional treasury bonds, and ultra-long-term special treasury bonds are also being issued for use.”
“In the next three months, a total of 2.3 trillion yuan of special bond funds can be arranged for use in various places,” he added.
On top of that, Beijing also plans to “issue special government bonds to support large state-owned commercial banks,” Lan said, although he did not say how much.
Chinese authorities have been urging commercial banks to lend more and lower mortgage rates — measures that would put more cash into the pockets of consumers.
Beijing’s bonds would therefore offer banks help to shore up their capital, giving them greater leeway to lend more.
Bonds for buildings
And local governments will be issued special bonds enabling them to acquire unused and idle land for development, Vice Finance Minister Liao Min said, in action that could prop up the housing market.
The move would “help ease liquidity and debt pressures on local governments and real estate companies,” he explained.
Beijing will also encourage the acquisition of existing commercial properties to be used as affordable housing.
However, analysts expressed frustration that Beijing had refrained from putting a number on further fiscal stimulus.
“The key messages are that … the central government has the capacity to issue more bonds and raise fiscal deficit, and… the central government plans to issue more bonds to help local governments to pay their debt,” Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, said.
Beijing was likely “still working on the minute details of the fiscal stimulus,” Heron Lim at Moody’s Analytics told AFP.
“In the meantime, investors might be taking a step back until they are absolutely certain of the direction fiscal policy is taking.”
‘Lack of forward guidance’
China’s economic uncertainty is also fueling a vicious cycle that has kept consumption stubbornly low.
Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China economics at Capital Economics, said that “notably absent was any mention of large-scale handouts to consumers” on Saturday.
“The lack of forward guidance on the scale of next year’s budget deficit means it is still difficult to judge how large and long-lasting the fiscal boost will be,” he pointed out.
Chinese policymakers have in the last weeks unveiled a string of stimulus measures including a suite of rate cuts and a loosening of rules on buying homes, but economists said that more action is needed to pull the economy out of its slump for good.
Earlier Saturday, China’s top banks said they would cut lower interest rates on existing mortgages from October 25, state media said, following a government call for the action.
“Except for second mortgages in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and some other regions, the interest rates on other eligible mortgages will be adjusted” to no less than 30 basis points below the prime lending rate, the central bank’s benchmark rate for mortgages, state broadcaster CCTV said.
CCTV reported that major banks, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China and China Construction Bank had announced that they would make the adjustments “in batches.”
The People’s Bank of China last month requested that commercial banks lower such rates by October 31.
Beijing also last month slashed interest on one-year loans to financial institutions, cut the amount of cash lenders must keep on hand and pushed to lower rates on existing mortgages.
And the central bank this week boosted support for markets by opening up tens of billions of dollars in liquidity for firms to buy stocks.
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Meta removes fake accounts in Moldova ahead of presidential election
STOCKHOLM — Meta Platforms said on Friday that it had removed a network of group accounts targeting Russian speakers in Moldova ahead of the country’s October 20 election, for violation of the company’s policy on fake accounts.
Authorities in Moldova, an ex-Soviet state lying between Romania and Ukraine, said they had blocked dozens of Telegram channels and chat bots linked to a drive to pay voters to cast “no” ballots in a referendum on European Union membership held alongside the presidential election.
Pro-European President Maia Sandu is seeking a second term in the election and called the referendum on joining the 27-member bloc as the cornerstone of her policies.
The fake Meta accounts posted criticism of Sandu, pro-EU politicians and close ties between Moldova and Romania, and supported pro-Russia parties in Moldova, the company said.
The company said its operation centered on about a dozen fictitious, Russian-language news brands posing as independent entities with presence on multiple internet services, including Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram, as well as Telegram, OK.ru and TikTok.
Meta said it removed seven Facebook accounts, 23 pages, one group and 20 accounts on Instagram for violating its “coordinated inauthentic behavior policy.”
About 4,200 accounts followed one or more of the 23 pages and about 335,000 accounts followed one or more of the Instagram accounts, Meta said.
In Chisinau, the National Investigation Inspectorate said it had blocked 15 channels of the popular Telegram messaging app and 95 chat bots offering voters money. Users were told the channels “violated local laws” on political party financing.
It had traced the accounts to supporters of fugitive businessman Ilan Shor — members of the banned party bearing his name or the “Victory” electoral bloc he had set up in its place from his base of exile in Moscow.
Moldovan police said on Thursday that they searched homes of leaders linked to Shor as part of a criminal investigation into election-meddling. Police have said tens of thousands of voters were paid off via accounts in a Russian bank to derail the vote.
Shor was sentenced to 15 years in jail in absentia last year in connection with the 2014 disappearance of $1 billion from Moldovan banks. He denies allegations of trying to bribe voters.
Sandu accuses Moscow of trying to topple her government while Moscow has accused her of fomenting “Russophobia.”
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Despite tariffs, China drives toward dominating EV market all over world
washington — As China pursues tit-for-tat actions against the European Union in response to tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles, Beijing’s drive for global dominance in the automotive sector continues unabated.
Over the past year, companies such as EV giant BYD and others have made inroads in markets from Southeast Asia to Latin America and Africa, even as they face tariffs of up to 100% in Canada and the United States, and up to 45% in the European Union.
Chinese EV companies have announced plans to invest millions to build new factories in Thailand and Brazil, and they have opened showrooms in Zambia, Kenya and South Africa.
And while most Chinese EV makers say they will continue to sell cars in Europe and not boost prices to offset the tariffs, analysts say it makes sense that they are equally focused, if not more so, on markets in the developing world as well.
Ryan Berg, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the EV market is like a balloon that is fully blown up.
“When countries like the U.S., the EU, Canada and others squeeze [the balloon], the air is going to go elsewhere. Well, the air right now is going to go to the developing world countries that haven’t put the tariffs on Chinese cars in the first place,” Berg said.
Bangkok, Brazil and Ethiopia
In Thailand, companies such as Great Wall and BYD are leading the way. BYD opened a production facility in Thailand in July and its company chairman, Wang Chuanfu, said BYD has already captured 40% of the market for EVs. Earlier this year, Great Wall became the first Chinese EV company to mass-produce electric vehicles overseas through its production facilities in Thailand.
In addition to Thailand, BYD has also captured a large market share in Singapore and Malaysia. According to government statistics, the EV behemoth ranked as Singapore’s second-most popular car brand by sales in the first half of 2024. BYD ranked among the top 10 car brands in Malaysia when compared with all registered vehicles, following BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
In Latin America, BYD plans to launch a partnership with Uber that aims to bring 100,000 Chinese-made EVs to Uber drivers globally. In addition, BYD is planning a new auto factory in eastern Brazil to come online in 2025. Both BYD and Great Wall have local R&D, production and sales centers in Brazil.
John Helveston, an assistant professor in engineering management at George Washington University, said from a business perspective, it makes sense for Chinese EV companies to move to markets where there is more room for profit.
“I mean, just like we have Toyota and GM and Ford and Volkswagen … these companies like BYD very much are also global companies,” Helveston told VOA. “They want to expand just like any other successful business.”
Paul Nantulya, a China specialist at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Washington, said Africa provides huge market opportunities for Chinese EV companies.
That opportunity, however, comes with its challenges. As in other countries, there is still a lack of infrastructure for EVs in Africa such as charging stations.
Nantulya, who attended the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), said Beijing and Africa are building long-term relationships, particularly when it comes to green energy and EV sectors.
About “122 green energy projects have been implemented since the last FOCAC, so between 2021 and 2024, 122 green energy projects have been implemented across the African continent across 40 countries. So, the demand is huge, and it is steady,” he told VOA.
“Chinese state-owned enterprises that are in this sector have been making a very, very aggressive push in developing economies … you know, the uptick of that technology in Africa is extremely high,” he said.
In March, China partnered with Ethiopia to announce an ambitious plan to shift toward electric mobility. The plan aims to introduce nearly half a million electric vehicles in Ethiopia over the next decade.
Mutual benefits
All three analysts said Beijing’s penetration of global markets is boosted by the economic benefits that China offers in exchange. For example, Helveston said, many countries are willing to “leverage market access” in exchange for improved infrastructure and technology.
Chinese companies have built roads, trains, schools and hospitals in some of the poorest countries in the world, and developing countries see “automotive trade [as] just building on top of those relationships that have already been there a while,” he said. “It’s a very transactional relationship.”
CSIS’s Berg said countries in Latin America “have been really keen to court Chinese investment in technological industries like the EV industry.” He noted that Latin American countries see the EV industry as “reliable” and “plentiful in terms of job opportunities.”
Nantulya added that Chinese technology is seen as a way to help African countries address energy challenges such as blackouts.
“When you look at it from the African perspective, [China’s presence] is helping them diversify their energy grids, which is a significant issue. It’s also contributing to improving their energy mix,” Nantulya said.
China has taken a proactive approach by building large infrastructure projects in developing countries, whereas the United States has not yet undertaken projects of similar scale, he said.
“I think that we’re looking at some pretty big shifts in, let’s say, 10 years from now with what the global situation might be. … A lot of these countries might be much more comfortable working with China than the U.S.,” Helveston said.
Washington, however, is not sitting back. At the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in 2022, the United States committed to $55 billion in pledges over three years that included investments in renewable energy infrastructure, clean energy and efforts to mitigate climate change.
Berg said geopolitics also is a motivating factor in Beijing’s push into developing countries in South America.
“They are in their geopolitical competition with [the United States], engaging in reciprocity … showing that they can be extremely active in some ways and especially in the economic domain in our neighborhood,” he said.
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Two additional human bird flu cases confirmed in California
US lawmakers seek answers from telecoms on Chinese hacking report
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers asked AT&T, Verizon Communications, and Lumen Technologies on Friday to answer questions after a report that Chinese hackers accessed the networks of U.S. broadband providers.
The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday hackers obtained information from systems the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping, and said the three companies were among the telecoms whose networks were breached.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican, and the top Democrat on the committee Representative Frank Pallone along with Representatives Bob Latta and Doris Matsui asked the three companies to answer questions. They are seeking a briefing and detailed answers by next Friday.
“There is a growing concern regarding the cybersecurity vulnerabilities embedded in U.S. telecommunications networks,” the lawmakers said. They are asking for details on what information was seized and when the companies learned about the intrusion.
AT&T and Lumen declined to comment, while Verizon did not immediately comment.
It was unclear when the hack occurred.
Hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorized U.S. requests for communications data, the Journal said. It said the hackers had also accessed other tranches of internet traffic.
China’s foreign ministry said on Sunday that it was not aware of the attack described in the report but said the United States had “concocted a false narrative” to “frame” China in the past.
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Smithsonian and NASA present exhibit that explores ever-changing Earth
This month, [October 8] the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History opened “NASA’s Earth Information Center” an exhibition that gives visitors a firsthand look at the forces shaping our planet. Andrei Dziarkach has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Artem Kohan
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China to lift 4-year ban on Australian lobster imports, Australia’s prime minister says
MELBOURNE, Australia — China will resume importing Australian live lobsters by the end of the year, removing the final major obstacle to bilateral trade that once cost Australian exporters more than 20 billion Australian dollars ($13 billion) a year, Australia’s prime minister said Thursday.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made the announcement after meeting Premier Li Qiang on the sidelines of a Southeast Asian summit in Vientiane, Laos.
The ban on lobsters was the last of a series of official and unofficial trade barriers that Beijing has agreed to lift since Albanese’s center-left Labor Party government was elected in 2022.
“I’m pleased to announce that Premier Li and I have agreed on a timetable to resume full lobster trade by the end of this year,” Albanese told reporters.
“This of course will be in time for Chinese New Year, and this will be welcomed by the people engaged in the live lobster industry,” he added.
Albanese has given assurances that relations with China have been improved without compromising Australian interests. Beijing is unhappy with restrictions Australia has placed on some Chinese investments because of security concerns.
“What’s important is that friends are able to have direct discussions. It doesn’t imply agreement, it doesn’t imply compliance, and I’ll always represent Australia’s national interest. That’s what I did today. It was a very constructive meeting,” Albanese said.
“I’m encouraged by the progress that we have made between Australia and China’s relationship in producing stabilization to the benefit of both of our nations and with the objective of advancing peace and security in the region,” Albanese added.
China’s embassy in Australia did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Australian lobster exports to China had been worth $700 million Australian dollars ($470 million) in 2019.
Beijing ended trade with Australia in 2020 on a range of commodities including lobster, coal, wine, barley, beef and wood as diplomatic relations plumbed new depths.
Conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison had angered Beijing that year by demanding an independent investigation into the origins of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tom Ryan, a manager at lobster exporter Five Star Seafoods at Port MacDonnell in South Australia state, said he was disappointed that his trade would be the last to resume with China.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Ryan told Australian Broadcasting Corp. of Albanese’s announcement.
“Between myself and other people in Port MacDonnell, it’s an absolute relief,” he added.
The industry had found new markets for lobster products but at lower profit margins, Ryan said.
Li said during a state visit to Australia in June that he had agreed with Albanese to “properly manage” their nations’ differences.
Beijing had severed minister-to-minister contacts during the conservatives’ nine years in power.
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Prayer camps in Nigeria attract ‘miracle seekers’
The power of simple prayer to heal illness is not clear, according to scientists, and is difficult to study. Whatever your faith, when you’re sick, you should seek treatment from a doctor. But in Nigeria, some people choose spiritual healers and miracle cures over orthodox medicine and hospitals. That creates some dangerous situations. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.
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A rare comet brightens the night skies in October
NEW YORK — Prepare to spot a rare, bright comet.
The space rock is slinging toward Earth from the outer reaches of the solar system and will make its closest pass Saturday. It should be visible through the end of October, clear skies permitting.
Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas should be bright enough to see with the naked eye, but binoculars and telescopes will give a better view.
“It’ll be this fuzzy circle with a long tail stretching away from it,” said Sally Brummel, planetarium manager at the Bell Museum in Minnesota.
What is a comet?
Comets are frozen leftovers from the solar system’s formation billions of years ago. They heat up as they swing toward the sun, releasing their characteristic streaming tails.
In 2023, a green comet that last visited Earth 50,000 years ago zoomed by the planet again. Other notable flybys included Neowise in 2020, and Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake in the mid to late 1990s.
Where did comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas come from?
The comet, also designated C/2023 A3, was discovered last year and is named for the observatories in China and South Africa that spied it.
It came from what’s known as the Oort Cloud well beyond Pluto. After making its closest approach about 71 million kilometers of Earth, it won’t return for another 80,000 years — assuming it survives the trip.
Several comets are discovered every year, but many burn up near the sun or linger too far away to be visible without special equipment, according to Larry Denneau, a lead researcher with the Atlas telescope that helped discover the comet.
How to view the comet
Those hoping to spot comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas should venture outside about an hour after sunset on a clear night and look to the west.
The comet should be visible from both the northern and southern hemispheres.
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One in 8 girls and women raped or sexually assaulted before age 18, UNICEF says
UNITED NATIONS — More than 370 million girls and women alive today, or one in every eight worldwide, experienced rape or sexual assault before the age of 18, the United Nations children’s agency said Wednesday.
The number rises to 650 million, or one in five, when taking into account “non-contact” forms of sexual violence, such as online or verbal abuse, UNICEF reported, in what it called the first global survey of the problem.
The report said that while girls and women were worst affected, 240 million to 310 million boys and men, or around 1 in 11, have experienced rape or sexual assault during childhood.
“The scale of this human rights violation is overwhelming, and it’s been hard to fully grasp because of stigma, challenges in measurement, and limited investment in data collection,” UNICEF said in releasing the report.
It comes ahead of an inaugural Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children in Colombia next month.
UNICEF said its findings highlight the urgent need for intensified global action, including by strengthening laws and helping children recognize and report sexual violence.
UNICEF said sexual violence cuts across geographical, cultural, and economic boundaries, but sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of victims, with 79 million girls and women, or 22% affected. Eastern and South-Eastern Asia follow with 75 million, or 8%.
In its data for women and girls, UNICEF estimated 73 million, or 9%, were affected in Central and Southern Asia; 68 million, or 14%, in Europe and Northern America; 45 million, or 18%, in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 29 million, or 15%, in Northern Africa and Western Asia.
Oceania, with 6 million, had the highest number affected by percentage, at 34%.
Risks were higher, rising to 1 in 4, in “fragile settings,” including those with weak institutions, U.N. peacekeeping forces, or large numbers of refugees, the report found.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell called sexual violence against children “a stain on our moral conscience.”
“It inflicts deep and lasting trauma, often by someone the child knows and trusts, in places where they should feel safe.”
UNICEF said most childhood sexual violence occurs during adolescence, especially between ages 14 and 17, and those who suffer it face higher risks of sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse and mental health issues.
“(T)he impact is further compounded when children delay disclosing their experiences … or keep the abuse secret altogether,” UNICEF said.
It said increased investment in data collection was needed to capture the full scale the problem, given persistent data gaps, particularly on boys’ experiences.
UNICEF said it based its estimates of girls’ and women’s experiences on nationally representative surveys conducted between 2010 and 2022 in 120 countries and areas. It said estimates for boys and men were derived from a broader range of data sources and applied some indirect methods.
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Colombia’s Caribbean islands on front line of war on climate change
As representatives of the signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity prepare to meet in Cali, Colombia, this month, residents of some Colombian islands in the Caribbean are calling for action because rising seas are threatening their homes, families, and way of life. Austin Landis traveled to Santa Cruz del Islote to hear their story. Camera: Jorge Calle.
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Expansion of ASEAN-China free-trade pact questioned amid summit
TAIPEI, TAIWAN — As Laos hosts this year’s summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Beijing is calling for additions to its free-trade agreement with the regional forum that focus on smart cities, 5G, artificial intelligence and e-commerce.
Ahead of the ASEAN summit, which began Sunday and ends Friday, Chinese state media have stepped up efforts to promote the benefits of what they call an upgrade to the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area, or CAFTA, agreement.
Analysts point out that the two sides have not reached agreement on what’s being called “CAFTA 3.0,” and that it remains to be seen whether including China’s electric vehicles and e-commerce would benefit Southeast Asian industries that are struggling to compete with their Chinese counterparts.
“The establishment of a free-trade demonstration zone is actually nothing more than the hope that things can be sold into China,” Ming-Fang Tsai, a professor in the Department of Industrial Economics at Taiwan’s Tamkang University, told VOA.
However, he said the Chinese market is facing a lack of domestic demand and overproduction, leading to price competition.
“So, is the FTA 3.0 really an upgrade? Actually, it is a big question mark,” he said by email.
Nevertheless, some specific areas in the 3.0 agreement still attract the attention of experts, including its focus on the EV industry.
Although ASEAN is also actively developing an EV industry, He Jiangbing, a China-based economist and finance commentator, told VOA if China’s major EV manufacturers pour into Southeast Asia through changes in the agreement, it would likely have a huge impact on the local automobile industries.
“China’s mainland started relatively early in new-energy vehicles and has developed rapidly for 10 years. But the automotive industry in ASEAN is relatively weak. If China’s new-energy vehicles are sold in ASEAN, it will be difficult for Southeast Asian [traditional] car companies to resist,” He said.
Southeast Asia’s own automobile industry will be greatly affected or cease to exist, He said.
But Lu Xi, a senior lecturer at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, told VOA that most of China’s EVs are not getting into Southeast Asia through exports but through production-line transfer, similar to joint ventures, so a price war should not cause a negative impact.
“With the transfer of [China’s EV] manufacturing industry chain, the economic structure of Southeast Asia will undergo a huge transformation,” Lu said by email. “Depending on the current political and economic situation between China and the US, Southeast Asia itself also has a very broad local market and a very good young population structure, so on the whole, the Southeast Asian market should be one of the important engines of economic growth in the whole region in the future.”
Tsai noted that Chinese manufacturers will set up factories in Southeast Asia to avoid the “Made in China” label and restrictions on Chinese products.
“U.S. controls on technology may affect the components of EVs in the future,” he said, “which brings great pressure to Chinese manufacturers.”
In addition to EVs, the 3.0 agreement also focuses on smart cities, 5G, artificial intelligence and e-commerce.
Analysts say China’s e-commerce is already having a negative impact on the region as orders of cheaper Chinese imports and knockoffs are flooding Southeast Asia. Half of the ceramic factories in Thailand’s northern Lampang province have closed, and Indonesian textile workers are facing mass layoffs, the South China Morning Post and the Bangkok Post reported.
“In the face of the massive entry of the [Chinese] e-commerce, frankly speaking, these Southeast Asian countries are relatively uncompetitive,” said Tsai. “Because first, [they] will not be able to compete with China in marketing and sales. Second, [China’s] own products are cheaper.
“If my entire e-commerce system is better than yours,” Tsai said, “and my products are not more expensive than yours, then how can you compete with me?”
Nonetheless, in a September speech for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, in Nanning, China, ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn called on businesses to take full advantage of the partnership as they move toward the changes.
He touted the RCEP, the world’s largest trade bloc, covering nearly 30% of global gross domestic product at $29 trillion and 2.3 billion people across the Asia Pacific region.
“ASEAN’s multidirectional economic relations have been a major driver behind the use of RCEP,” said Hourn, according to a written statement. “China, for example, has remained ASEAN’s largest trading partner for the past 15 years and has also climbed from the 5th largest source of FDI to ASEAN in 2022 to the 3rd largest in 2023. With both RCEP and ACFTA 3.0 in place, I am confident that trade and investment between ASEAN, China, and the rest of the RCEP partners will continue to flourish for the benefit of the people in this wider region.”
ASEAN calls the free-trade agreement ACFTA; Beijing refers to it as CAFTA.
The agreement was established by China and ASEAN in 2009, and the ASEAN-China Summit announced the launch of negotiations for the changes in November 2022.
VOA’s Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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Wimbledon tennis tournament replaces line judges with AI in break with tradition
LONDON — That long-held Wimbledon tradition of line judges dressed in elegant uniforms is no more.
The All England Club announced Wednesday that artificial intelligence will be used to make the “out” and “fault” calls at the championships from 2025.
Wimbledon organizers said the decision to adopt live electronic line calling was made following extensive testing at the 2024 tournament and “builds on the existing ball-tracking and line-calling technology that has been in place for many years.”
“We consider the technology to be sufficiently robust and the time is right to take this important step in seeking maximum accuracy in our officiating,” said Sally Bolton, chief executive of the All England Club. “For the players, it will offer them the same conditions they have played under at a number of other events on tour.”
Bolton said Wimbledon had a responsibility to “balance tradition and innovation.”
“Line umpires have played a central role in our officiating setup at the championships for many decades,” she said, “and we recognize their valuable contribution and thank them for their commitment and service.”
Line-calling technology has long been used at Wimbledon and other tennis tournaments to call whether serves are in or out.
The All England Club also said Wednesday that the ladies’ and gentlemen’s singles finals will be scheduled to take place at the later time of 4 p.m. local time on the second Saturday and Sunday, respectively — and after doubles finals on those days.
Bolton said the moves have been made to ensure the day of the finals “builds towards the crescendo of the ladies’ and gentlemen’s singles finals, with our champions being crowned in front of the largest possible worldwide audience.”
Baker, Hassabis, Jumper win 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
STOCKHOLM — Scientists David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the award-giving body said on Wednesday, for their work on the structure of proteins.
The prize, widely regarded as among the most prestigious in the scientific world, is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and is worth $1.1 million.
“One of the discoveries being recognized this year concerns the construction of spectacular proteins. The other is about fulfilling a 50-year-old dream: predicting protein structures from their amino acid sequences,” the academy said in a statement.
Half the prize was awarded to Baker “for computational protein design” while the other half was shared by Hassabis and Jumper “for protein structure prediction,” the academy said.
The third award to be handed out every year, the chemistry prize follows those for medicine and physics announced earlier this week.
The Nobel prizes were established in the will of dynamite inventor and wealthy businessman Alfred Nobel and are awarded to “those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”
First handed out in 1901, 15 years after Nobel’s death, it is awarded for achievements in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace. Recipients in each category share the prize sum that has been adjusted over the years.
The economics prize is a later addition funded by the Swedish central bank.
Chemistry, close to Alfred Nobel’s heart and the discipline most applicable to his own work as an inventor, may not always be the most headline-grabbing of the prizes, but past recipients include scientific greats such as radioactivity pioneers Ernest Rutherford and Marie Curie.
Last year’s chemistry award went to Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Aleksey Ekimov for their discovery of tiny clusters of atoms known as quantum dots, widely used today to create colors in flat screens, light emitting diode (LED) lamps and devices that help surgeons see blood vessels in tumors.
Alongside the cash prize, the winners will be presented a medal by the Swedish king on Dec. 10, followed by a lavish banquet in Stockholm city hall.
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