The United Nations, scientists and governments made an urgent call Wednesday for increased funding to protect coral reefs under threat of extinction.

Research this year shows that 77% of the world’s reefs are affected by bleaching, mainly due to warming ocean waters amid human-caused climate change. It’s the largest and fourth mass global bleaching on record and is impacting both hemispheres, United Nations Capital Development Fund said.

The findings prompted a U.N. special emergency session — typically called to address escalating conflicts or natural disasters — on corals to be convened on sidelines of the U.N. biodiversity summit, known as COP16, nearing its end after two weeks in Cali, Colombia.

Coral reefs are vital ecosystems that support over 25% of marine life and nearly a billion people, many relying on reefs for food security, coastal protection and livelihoods, the U.N. development fund said.

After the emergency session, the governments of New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany and France made new pledges totaling around $30 million to the U.N. fund for coral reefs established in 2020. By 2030, the fund seeks to leverage up to $3 billion in public and private finance to support coral reef conservation efforts. Around $225 million has been raised to date.

“Protecting our ocean and its precious habitats is fundamental to life on earth,” said U.K. Minister for Nature Mary Creagh. “But without urgent action, the world’s coral reefs face extinction from global heating, acidification, disease, and pollution; a vital ecosystem lost within our lifetime.”

Next year, a U.N. ocean conference will take place in Nice, France, and countries are being urged beforehand to pledge more to the U.N. global fund for coral reefs with the aim of mobilizing an additional $150 million in donations by the conference.

“In 2024, climate change and other human impacts triggered the fourth mass coral reef bleaching event, the most extensive and devastating on record,” said Peter Thomson, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean. “With the window to protect these ecosystems closing rapidly, world leaders must act now.”

“We must secure a sustainable future for coral reefs and the countless lives that rely on them —before it’s too late,” Thomson said.

A change in water temperature can cause coral to drive out algae that provides nutrition, lose its color and become stressed. Coral may bleach for other reasons, such as extremely low tides, pollution or too much sunlight.

In the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, bleaching affected 90% of the coral assessed in 2022. The Florida Coral Reef, the third-largest, experienced significant bleaching last year.

The first mass bleaching happened in 1998, the second between 2011-2013, the third in 2016, said Kenyan marine ecologist David Obura, who heads Coastal Oceans Research and Development in the Indian Ocean East Africa.

“They’re lasting more than one year at a time, which is worrying,” Obura said at the U.N. emergency session at COP16.
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NEW DELHI — As India gears up for Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, people are divided over whether they should celebrate by setting off firecrackers, which worsen the country’s chronic air pollution.

Diwali, which will be celebrated Thursday, is marked by socializing and exchanging gifts with family and friends. Many Indians light earthen oil lamps or candles. But every year the festivities are tinged with worries over air pollution, as smoke-emitting firecrackers cause toxic smog that can take days to clear.

The capital, New Delhi, which is among India’s worst cities for air quality, is particularly impacted by the problem and is usually shrouded in toxic gray smog a day after Diwali. Authorities there and in some other states have banned the use and sale of firecrackers since 2017, asking people to opt for more sustainable options like environmentally friendly firecrackers and light shows, but the rule is often flouted. Firecrackers can be easily bought from roadside stalls and stores.

Some residents in New Delhi say the ban doesn’t make much difference, while others see it as a necessary measure to fight pollution.

Vegetable vendor Renu, who only uses one name, loves celebrating Diwali in the city. Every year her kids set off firecrackers at night. She tells them to be careful but not to refrain from using them.

“Diwali is a day of celebration and happiness for us which comes only once a year, and I feel the ban should not be there,” she said.

Others are against it.

Unlike most kids, Ruhaani Mandal, 13, doesn’t light firecrackers. She acknowledges it is fun but says it is hazardous for people and animals.

“I have seen firsthand the struggle of my father, who has lost his sense of smell due to pollution, and I see how his health worsens after Diwali celebrations,” she said.

New Delhi and several northern Indian cities typically see extremely high levels of air pollution between October and January each year, disrupting businesses and shutting schools and offices. Authorities close construction sites, restrict diesel-run vehicles and deploy water sprinklers and anti-smog guns to control the haze and smog that envelopes the skyline.

This year, thick, toxic smog has already started to engulf New Delhi. On Wednesday, authorities reported an AQI of over 300, which is categorized as “very poor.”

Several studies have estimated that more than a million Indians die each year from air pollution-related diseases. A high level of tiny particulate matter can lodge deep into the lungs and cause major health problems, including chronic respiratory diseases.

New Delhi’s woes aren’t only due to firecrackers. Vehicular emissions, farm fires in neighboring states and dust from construction are the primary causes of the capital’s air pollution woes. But health experts say the smoke emitted from firecrackers can be more hazardous.

“The smoke that is produced by firecrackers contains heavy metals like sulphur, lead and toxic gases like carbon monoxide and fumes of heavy metals that are dangerous to our respiratory system,” said Arun Kumar Sharma, a community medicine professor at New Delhi’s University College of Medical Sciences.

Meanwhile, authorities in New Delhi have largely failed to enforce a strict ban on the use of firecrackers to avoid offending millions of Hindus across the country, for whom Diwali is one of the biggest festivals. To sidestep the ban, many sellers offer firecrackers online, some with the convenience of home delivery.

Shopkeeper Gyaanchand Goyal said the ban on firecrackers has disadvantaged sellers like him and affected their biggest source of income during the festive season.

“The government enforces a restriction on firecrackers solely to demonstrate their commitment to the environment. Other than that, I don’t think there are any other consequences of this ban,” he said.
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taipei, taiwan — China and Russia are deepening cooperation in Antarctica in a trend that analysts say could undermine marine conservation efforts and disrupt the long-standing status quo in the resource-rich region.

China and Russia were accused of collaborating to block key proposals that would establish new marine protected areas and revise the krill fishery management plan in the Southern Ocean, during the annual conference of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) in Australia last week.

The commission was established in 1982 and is a part of the Antarctic Treaty System, which establishes the legal status of Antarctica and comprises four different treaties.

CCAMLR focuses on preserving marine life and other resources in the Antarctic. The commission has 26 members, including China, Russia, the United States, Australia and the European Union.

Any member state can veto a proposed measure, and Russia and China have repeatedly used that power to block proposed conservation efforts by the council over the years.

Some member states said every proposed measure at this year’s conference, including the establishment of four new marine protected areas and an extension of existing krill management measures, was blocked by China or Russia or both.

“Most concerning was the failure of some members to support the extension of existing krill management measures while the harmonization process is progressed,” a spokesperson of the Australian Antarctic Division told VOA in a written response.

“This is a backwards step for CCAMLR and puts krill, and the ecosystems and predators it supports, at risk,” the spokesperson added. Krill are small shrimp-like crustaceans that play a crucial role in the marine food chain.

Limit on krill fishing

The measure that CCAMLR member states hope to preserve is the mechanism that limits krill fishing in a protected area near the Antarctic Peninsula to no more than 620,000 tons.

Another 620,000 tons of fishable krill are redistributed across several subareas to prevent overconcentration of krill fishing in one area.

The measure needs to be renewed annually during the CCAMLR meeting with the approval of all the commission’s member states. Analysts said China’s and Russia’s move to block the rollover of the krill measure will affect the sustainability of a crucial food source for species such as penguins, seals and whales.

“If there’s too much krill fishing in one small region of Antarctica, it will restrict the amount of food available to the seal and penguin populations,” Tony Press, an expert on Antarctic affairs at the University of Tasmania, told VOA in a video interview.

In his view, other countries within CCAMLR should try to collectively challenge China’s and Russia’s decisions to block the proposed conservation measures through diplomatic means or decide to implement the proposed measures without involving Beijing or Moscow.

“Other countries could decide that Russia and China’s behaviors mean they would have to start implementing decisions among themselves,” Press said.

Experts say China and Russia refuse to support the proposed measures because they think setting up more marine protected areas will lead to more areas in the Antarctic becoming unavailable for use or development.

“They think once a marine protected area is adopted, it creates a snowball effect and generates more support behind the development of additional marine protected areas, which both countries think could lead to all marine living resource exploitation in the Southern Ocean being completely prohibited,” said Donald Rothwell, professor of international law at Australian National University.

Lynda Goldsworthy, a research associate at the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, said one of China’s objectives in increasing its fishery footprint in the Southern Ocean is to “increase geopolitical influence in the Antarctic region.”

But since Russia is not as invested in the Southern Ocean as before, Goldsworthy said its decision to block marine conservation efforts in Antarctica is driven by an attempt to challenge the rules-based world order.

“Russia is playing the disruptor and [the objections] are part of their global disruption approach,” she told VOA by phone.

The Russian Foreign Ministry and Russian Embassy in the U.S. have not responded to VOA’s request for comments. The Chinese Foreign Ministry and Chinese Embassy in Australia also have not responded to requests for comments from VOA.

CCAMLR successfully established two marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean in 2009 and 2017, but no new zones have been established since then. The four new zones proposed during the 2024 meeting would increase the protected area in the Southern Ocean to 26%.

Antarctic status quo

The deepened cooperation between China and Russia in Antarctica comes as Beijing expands its presence across the continent. In February, China inaugurated a new scientific research station near a U.S. research station. The development raises concerns among some security analysts that China may collect intelligence or develop its dual-used capabilities through the station.

China’s increased presence in Antarctica has allowed Beijing to more boldly assert its agenda in some regional bodies such as CCAMLR, said Press.

China’s behavior at last week’s conference “is a reflection of their confidence because they are now a party with a significant presence in the Antarctic,” he told VOA.

“A lot of what they [China and Russia] are doing points to the idea that the actions they take now are to ensure there are no curbs on any future actions they might take,” Press added.

Goldsworthy said the growing synergy between China and Russia in Antarctica could create potential challenges for the Antarctic Treaty System.

“There had been blockages for the protection of penguins on the Antarctic continent, and I do think both Russia and China are positioning themselves for [mineral mining] when or if the current mining ban is lifted,” she told VOA.

While Beijing and Moscow have been consistently blocking CCAMLR’s proposals, Rothwell said it is unclear whether that trend has “totally infected decision-making within the Antarctic Treaty,” which designates the continent as a demilitarized zone for peaceful purposes and scientific research.

Even if China and Russia can’t easily challenge the treaty, Rothwell said that China “will find it advantageous to align itself with Russia,” in order to fulfill its aspirations to exercise control and influence in Antarctica.

Goldsworthy added that if China and Russia maintain their “combative approach” in the Antarctic Treaty System, which includes CCAMLR, it could turn “a safe and secure region” into a “much less peace-oriented” continent.
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washington — Militant groups have intensified attacks against polio vaccination teams and their police escorts in Pakistan amid a dramatic resurgence of polio cases in the country.

Officials say because of the deteriorating security situation, polio vaccination teams cannot reach communities in high-risk areas where polio is endemic.

On Tuesday, militants attacked two health centers in the tribal districts of Orakzai and Waziristan that are being used in the polio vaccination campaign. Two police officials were killed in the attack in the restive region along the Afghan border.

According to local officials in North Waziristan, militants took guns from the police officers guarding the polio team and warned the health workers not to take part in the anti-polio campaign.

Pakistan Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, in reaction to the latest violence, said in a statement, “The terrorists’ attack on the polio team is an attack on the safe future of Pakistan.”

Violence has heightened safety concerns among front-line polio workers in the country.

“When I go out as part of [a] polio vaccination team, I am not sure I will return home safely,” Fahima Bibi, a front-line polio worker supervising vaccinations in northwestern Pakistan, told VOA.

But Bibi said she is determined to do the job.

“The cause is bigger and needs bigger commitment and sacrifice,” she told VOA.

Bibi’s concerns for safety are shared by many of her co-workers.

According to the Pakistan National Emergency Operations Center for Polio Eradication, 225,440 female vaccinators are working in the immunization workforce, going door to door to administer polio drops to children. They travel to hard-to-reach and remote, conservative regions in Pakistan, breaking cultural barriers.

Ihtesham Ali, minister of health in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, expressed concern Wednesday over the surge in attacks. He told VOA that the “security situation in the southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is quite bad. And it is affecting access to communities. It is creating difficulties in our access for polio vaccinations.”

‘A fearful environment’

Most of the recent cases in Pakistan were reported in southwestern Balochistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

World Health Organization officials in southern Balochistan province say militant violence has affected polio campaigns in the province.

“Polio teams go house to house in a fearful environment,” said Dr. Nayyar Khan Loni, a WHO official in Balochistan. He said that the recent attacks in Balochistan have forced polio teams to rush the vaccination of children in some areas.

He said immunization campaigns have been modified because of security concerns. He attributed the recent polio outbreak in Balochistan to several factors, including cross-border mobility with Afghanistan and misinformation among certain parents about polio vaccines.

Campaign against polio vaccinators

Pakistan’s hard-line extremist group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has sustained a violent campaign against polio vaccinators and security forces guarding polio team workers in Pakistan for nearly 15 years. Militants spread false claims that polio vaccines are part of a Western agenda to sterilize Muslim children. Also, militants target polio teams suspected of being government spies.

In January, at least five policemen were killed and more than a dozen injured in a major attack on polio teams and security personnel in northwestern Pakistan.

According to the Emergency Operations Center in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, militants have carried out 23 attacks against polio teams and security escorts in Pakistan this year.

Overall, militant-sponsored violence has increased in Pakistan since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021.

According to independent think tanks tracking violence in Pakistan, militant violence has killed more than 1,000 Pakistanis, half of them security forces, in the first 10 months of this year.

The Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition identified 16 incidents of violence against or obstruction of health care in Pakistan in 2022, an increase from seven in 2021. Nearly 90% of these incidents involved threats and violence against polio vaccination workers, undermining health care providers’ ability to meet vaccination targets.

Experts say the TTP has ignored local and international religious scholars’ fatwa (edicts) that support polio vaccination in Pakistan.

Fakhar Hayat Kakakhel, a Pakistan-based researcher on militancy, said that because of military operations, militants lost space and polio vaccination teams gained more access to conflict areas.

“After August 2021, when the Pakistani Taliban regrouped in the region and got space, they restarted their anti-polio vaccination campaigns. And now we are seeing a sudden surge in cases of polio,” he said.

Sindh province health officials say the security situation in Sindh is not like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but police are providing security to polio teams in Karachi and other parts of the province.

“Police are patrolling the streets in Karachi so that polio teams feel safe. We do not have any security issue, but [the] police department is with us,” Shumaila Rasool, spokesperson for Emergency Operations Center in Sindh, told VOA.

Afghanistan and Pakistan launched synchronized polio immunization campaigns on Monday. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where the spread of polio has never been stopped.

VOA Deewa reporter Usman Khan contributed from Peshawar.
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CHICAGO, ILLINOIS — H5N1 bird flu had been confirmed in a pig in a backyard farm in Oregon, the first detection of the virus in swine in the country, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Wednesday.

Pigs represent a particular concern for the spread of bird flu because they can become co-infected with bird and human viruses, which could swap genes to form a new, more dangerous virus that can more easily infect humans.

The USDA said there is no risk to the nation’s pork supply from the Oregon case and that the risk to the public from bird flu remains low.

Pigs were the source of the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009-2010, and have been implicated as the source of others, said Richard Webby, a St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital virologist who studies flu in animals and birds for the World Health Organization.

The finding of the virus in a small farm makes the pig infection less of a concern than if it had been detected in a commercial pig farm, he said.

“I think it probably doesn’t increase the risk much, but surely, if this virus starts transmitting in pigs, that absolutely increases the risk,” he said.

The Oregon farm has been quarantined, and other animals there, including sheep and goats, are under surveillance, the USDA said.

Pigs and poultry on the farm were culled to prevent the spread of the virus and enable additional testing of the swine, the USDA said. Tests are still pending for two of the pigs, the agency said.

The swine case originated with wild birds and not from a poultry or dairy farm, a USDA spokesperson said. Wild bird migration has carried bird flu to poultry flocks and cattle herds.

The case was one factor that prompted the USDA to broaden its bird flu surveillance to include nationwide bulk milk testing, which the agency announced on Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told Reuters in an interview.

“While it’s a different variation of the virus and it is tied to wild birds, it is a factor to make sure that we understand and appreciate exactly where the virus is in dairy and in bovine,” he said.

The pigs on the Oregon farm were not intended for the commercial food supply, the USDA said.

The agency said that poultry and swine on the backyard farm shared water sources, housing and equipment, which have all served as pathways for transmitting the virus between animals in other states.

The detection is a warning for pig farmers to be on the lookout for further infections, said Marie Culhane, a professor of veterinary population medicine at the University of Minnesota who has researched flu viruses in swine.

“People need to start increasing their plans to deal with it if it should happen in another herd and another herd,” Culhane said. “Pigs are just really good at picking up influenza viruses.”

This year, 36 people have tested positive for bird flu as the virus has spread to nearly 400 dairy herds. All but one of the people were farm workers who had known contact with infected animals.

Since 2022, the virus has wiped out more than 100 million poultry birds in the nation’s worst-ever bird flu outbreak.
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LONDON — Britain has detected its first case of new mpox variant clade Ib, the country’s health security agency (UKHSA) said Wednesday, adding that the risk to the population remained low.  

The clade Ib variant is a new form of the virus that was declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO) in August after an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo spread to neighboring countries in Africa.  

The case, in a patient who had recently traveled to affected countries in Africa, was detected in London and the individual has been transferred to a specialist hospital, the UKHSA said.  

Close contacts of the case are being followed up by UKHSA and partner organizations, the UKHSA added.  

There have been cases of mpox clade Ib reported in Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Sweden, India and Germany, as well as Congo. It is a different form of the virus from clade II, which spread globally in 2022, largely among men who have sex with men.  

Mpox is a viral infection that typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions, and while usually mild it can kill. Clade Ib is thought to cause more severe disease than clade II.  

Both forms can be transmitted through close physical contact, including sexual contact.  

The United Kingdom authorities said they would not provide any more details about the patient, but added that the person’s contacts were being followed up and would be offered testing and vaccination as needed, as well as further care if they test positive or have symptoms.  

According to the latest WHO figures, there have been more than 44,000 confirmed and suspected cases of mpox in Africa this year, and more than 1,000 deaths, largely in Congo.
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london — More than 8 million people were diagnosed with tuberculosis last year, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, the highest number recorded since the U.N. health agency began keeping track.

About 1.25 million people died of TB last year, the new report said, adding that TB likely returned to being the world’s top infectious disease killer after being replaced by COVID-19 during the pandemic. The deaths are almost double the number of people killed by HIV in 2023.

WHO said TB continues to mostly affect people in Southeast Asia, Africa and the Western Pacific; India, Indonesia, China, the Philippines and Pakistan account for more than half of the world’s cases.

“The fact that TB still kills and sickens so many people is an outrage, when we have the tools to prevent it, detect it and treat it,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

TB deaths continue to fall globally, however, and the number of people being newly infected is beginning to stabilize. The agency noted that of the 400,000 people estimated to have drug-resistant TB last year, fewer than half were diagnosed and treated.

Tuberculosis is caused by airborne bacteria that mostly affects the lungs. Roughly a quarter of the global population is estimated to have TB, but only about 5%-10% of those develop symptoms.

Advocacy groups, including Doctors Without Borders, have long called for the U.S. company Cepheid, which produces TB tests used in poorer countries, to make them available for $5 per test to increase availability. Earlier this month, Doctors Without Borders and 150 global health partners sent Cepheid an open letter calling on them to “prioritize people’s lives” and to urgently help make TB testing more widespread globally.
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