UN plastic talks collapse as countries fail to agree targets 

BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA — Countries negotiating a global treaty to curb plastic pollution failed to reach agreement on Monday with over 100 nations wanting to cap production while a handful of oil producers were prepared only to target plastic waste. 

The fifth U.N. Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meeting to yield a legally binding global treaty in Busan, South Korea, was meant to be the final one. 

However, countries remained far apart on the basic scope of a treaty, and could agree only to postpone key decisions to a future meeting. 

“While I saw points of convergence in many areas, positions remain divergent in some others,” said Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the chair of the meeting. 

The most divisive issues included capping plastic production, managing plastic products and chemicals of concern, and financing to help developing countries implement the treaty. 

An option proposed by Panama, backed by over 100 countries, would have created a path for a global plastic production reduction target, while another proposal did not include production caps. 

The fault lines were apparent in a revised document released on Sunday by Valdivieso, which could have formed the basis of a treaty, but remained riddled with options on the most sensitive issues. 

“A treaty that… only relies on voluntary measures would not be acceptable,” said Juliet Kabera, director general of Rwanda’s Environment Management Authority. 

“It is time we take it seriously and negotiate a treaty that is fit for purpose and not built to fail.” 

A small number of petrochemical-producing nations, such as Saudi Arabia, have strongly opposed efforts to reduce plastic production and have tried to use procedural tactics to delay negotiations. 

“There was never any consensus,” said Saudi Arabian delegate Abdulrahman Al Gwaiz. “There are a couple of articles that somehow seem to make it (into the document) despite our continued insistence that they are not within the scope.” 

China, the United States, India, South Korea and Saudi Arabia were the top five primary polymer producing nations in 2023, according to data provider Eunomia. 

Entrenched divisions 

Had such divisions been overcome, the treaty would have been one of the most significant deals relating to environmental protection since the 2015 Paris Agreement. 

The postponement comes just days after the turbulent conclusion of the COP29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. 

At Baku, countries set a new global target for mobilizing $300 billion annually in climate finance, a deal deemed woefully insufficient by small island states and many developing countries. 

The climate talks were also slowed down by procedural maneuvers by Saudi Arabia – which objected to the inclusion of language that reaffirmed a previous commitment to transition away from fossil fuels. 

Some negotiators said a few countries held the proceedings hostage, avoiding compromises needed by using the U.N.’s consensus process. 

Senegal’s National Delegate Cheikh Ndiaye Sylla called it “a big mistake” to exclude voting during the entire negotiations, an agreement made last year during the second round of talks in Paris. 

Plastic production is on track to triple by 2050, and microplastics have been found in air, fresh produce and even human breast milk. 

Chemicals of concern in plastics include more than 3,200 found according to a 2023 U.N. Environment Program report, which said women and children were particularly susceptible to their toxicity. 

Despite the postponement, several negotiators expressed urgency to get back to talks. 

“Every day of delay is a day against humanity. Postponing negotiations does not postpone the crisis,” said Panama’s delegation head, Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, on Sunday. 

“When we reconvene, the stakes will be higher.” 

 

Biden to spotlight Angola’s Lobito Corridor, his legacy to counter China in Africa

WASHINGTON — When U.S. President Joe Biden visits Angola in early December, he will put into focus his legacy infrastructure project aimed at securing crucial supply chains on the African continent. Called the Lobito Corridor, the project is the centerpiece of his administration’s strategy to counter China’s clout in global development.

The Lobito Corridor is a $5 billion investment across multiple sectors that is intended to revitalize and extend the 1,300-kilometer Benguela railway line. It will connect the 120-year-old Angolan port of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in its second phase, to Zambia.

Announced in September 2023, much of the corridor’s financing comes from the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. The PGI is a Biden-led 2022 initiative from the Group of Seven wealthiest economies that evolved from his Build Back Better World plan launched in 2021 as a counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Once operational, it will boost access to critical minerals for the United States and its partners, including cobalt and copper, that are essential in electric vehicle manufacturing. According to a U.S. congressional report, 80% of the DRC’s copper mines are Chinese owned. China is responsible for mining 85% of the DRC’s rare earth minerals, including 76% of its cobalt.

The Lobito Corridor is expected to cut transportation costs, open access to arable agricultural land and drive climate-resilient economic growth, Helaina Matza, acting special coordinator for the PGI at the U.S. Department of State, said Tuesday in a briefing to reporters.

The PGI’s investments will “amplify the impact of that infrastructure” with projects such as developing solar energy, local electricity networks and desalination efforts, she said.

The project is championed by Angolan President Joao Lourenco. Angola owes about $17 billion to China, more than a third of its total debt. The debt is mostly in the form of infrastructure development loans, backed by oil, that funded the country’s economic recovery following three decades of civil war that ended in 2002.

PGI to counter BRI

Since launching the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, in 2013, China has become the main backer of global development financing. In Africa, Beijing has signed loan commitments with 49 African governments and seven regional institutions.

From 2013 to 2021, China provided $679 billion for infrastructure projects around the world, according to a U.S. government analysis, while the U.S. provided $76 billion.

The U.S., alongside G7 partners, announced in 2022 that the PGI aims to mobilize $600 billion by 2027 as an alternative to infrastructure financing models that are “often opaque, fail to uphold environmental and social standards, exploit workers and leave the recipient countries worse off.”

That’s a lot of financing to catch up to in a few years, and Lobito is “the first and the most developed” project in that effort, said Witney Schneidman, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

“That’s the A+ project, but I don’t see a whole lot of other projects,” Schneidman told VOA.

The PGI’s other project, the Luzon Corridor, was launched in April to support connectivity between Subic Bay, Clark, Manila and Batangas in the Philippines.

In Lobito, the U.S. works mostly with European partners. In Luzon, the U.S. is teaming up with Japan to secure critical industries such as semiconductors.

The White House pushed back against the notion that Biden has scaled back his global infrastructure ambitions to the two corridors.

“We’ve mobilized more than $60 billion, just the U.S., and that’s a part of the larger G7,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told VOA in a briefing earlier this month.

“And that’s not just been for two corridors,” he said. “That’s been for investments across Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.”

US-Africa strategy

In August 2022, the Biden administration launched an Africa strategy that “reframes the region’s importance to U.S. national security interests,” the strategy says.

Later that year, Biden hosted the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, where he pledged the U.S. to invest $55 billion in Africa over three years.

“We are overdelivering on that thus far,” Frances Brown, senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council, said in a briefing Tuesday. “We’ve invested more than 80% of that commitment.”

But much of that $55 billion was allocated under existing programs and does not bring the kind of megaproject that is “visible to the average African that says the United States financed that in the way that the Chinese do,” said Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Which is why the Lobito Corridor stands out, Dizolele told VOA. It is the “one palpable project that people can look at and say, ‘If this is implemented, then maybe it would move things forward.’”

On a continent where the presence of Chinese financing, businesses and migrants are so prevalent that many African countries teach Mandarin in schools and incorporate Chinese characters in public signage, that’s a start.

Moving forward, activists hope the U.S. will not set aside social and environmental concerns that have besieged projects under Chinese financing.

“We have to ensure that we can hear all stakeholders engaging in the process,” said Sergio Calundungo, founder of the Social Observatory of Angola.

So far, civil society groups have not been invited to the table, but they are ready to ensure that local communities can “share as much as possible the prosperity through this important infrastructure,” he told VOA.

Will it continue?

President-elect Donald Trump will enter office in January. While some are concerned that the U.S. commitment to Africa might falter under his America First doctrine, analysts point to initiatives taken under his first administration.

In 2018, the Trump administration launched Prosper Africa, an initiative that brings together U.S. government services to help investors do business on the continent. In 2019, it launched the Blue Dot Network, an international certification mechanism to ensure infrastructure projects meet environmental and social standards.

They were aware that infrastructure investments needed “to foster economic growth, to foster stability, but also for U.S. interests globally when competing with China,” said Joseph Lemoine, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center. “I’m hopeful that they will continue those efforts,” he told VOA.

Trump also launched the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation in 2020. The DFC is an agency that functions as America’s development bank, with $60 billion in lending capacity.

DFC’s first CEO, Adam Boehler, a college roommate of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, spoke openly of linking development aid to foreign policy goals. In a 2020 interview, he admitted promising $2 billion for Indonesia should the country agree to join the Trump administration’s Abraham Accords and recognize Israel.

“If you listen to all the Trump people, they want a foreign policy that’s transactional,” Schneidman at Brookings said.

Trump has promised to take a confrontational approach to China. Analysts say aligning infrastructure financing needs with Trump’s foreign policy goals may be an element in the U.S.-China rivalry that developing nations can leverage.

‘Everything is expensive!’ Bolivia faces a shocking economic collapse

Fuel is rapidly becoming one of Bolivia’s scarcest commodities.

Long lines of vehicles snake for several kilometers outside gas stations all over Bolivia, once South America’s second-largest producer of natural gas. Some of the queues don’t budge for days.

While frustration builds, drivers like Victor García now eat, sleep and socialize around their stationary trucks, waiting to buy just a few liters of diesel — unless the station runs dry.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’re going to be worse off,” said García, 66, who inched closer to the pump Tuesday as the hours ticked by in El Alto, a bare-bones sprawl beside Bolivia’s capital in the Andean altiplano.

Bolivia’s monthslong fuel crunch comes as the nation’s foreign currency reserves plummet, leaving Bolivians unable to find U.S. dollars at banks and exchange houses. Imported goods that were once commonplace have become scarce.

The fuel crisis has created a sense that the country is coming undone, disrupting economic activity and everyday life for millions of people, hurting commerce and farm production and sending food prices soaring.

Mounting public anger has driven crowds into the streets in recent weeks, piling pressure on leftist President Luis Arce to ease the suffering ahead of a tense election next year.

“We want effective solutions to the shortage of fuel, dollars and the increase in food prices,” said Reinerio Vargas, the vice rector of Gabriel René Moreno Autonomous University in the eastern province of Santa Cruz, where hundreds of desperate truckers and residents flooded main squares Tuesday to vent their anger at Arce’s inaction and demand early elections.

In a similar eruption of discontent, protesters shouting, “Everything is expensive!” marched through the streets of the capital, La Paz, last week.

Bolivians say Arce’s image has suffered not only because of the crisis but also because his government insists that it doesn’t exist.

“Diesel sales are in the process of returning to normal,” Economy Minister Marcelo Montenegro said Tuesday.

Arce has repeatedly vowed that his government will end the fuel shortages and lower the prices of basic goods by arbitrary deadlines. On November 10, he again promised he would “resolve this issue” in 10 days.

As the deadlines come and go, the black market currency exchange rate has risen to nearly 40% more than the official rate.

Arce’s office did not respond to interview requests.

“The queues are getting longer and longer,” said 38-year-old driver Ramiro Morales, who needed a bathroom after four hours in line Tuesday but feared losing his place if he went searching for one. “People are exhausted.”

It’s a shocking turnaround for the landlocked nation of 12 million people that was a South American economic success story in the 2000s, when the commodities bonanza generated tens of billions of dollars under the nation’s first Indigenous president, former President Evo Morales.

Morales, Arce’s onetime mentor, is his present-day rival in the fight to be the ruling party’s candidate next year.

But when the commodities boom ended, prices slumped and gas production dwindled. Now, Bolivia spends an estimated $56 million a week to import most of its gasoline and diesel from Argentina, Paraguay and Russia.

Economy Minister Montenegro on Tuesday pledged that the government would continue providing fuel subsidies that critics say it can’t afford.

Banners from two years ago boasting that Bolivia’s inflation is the lowest in South America still greet tourists arriving at El Alto International Airport. Now, inflation is among the highest in the region.

Fuel shortages prevent farmers from getting their produce to distribution centers and markets, triggering a sharp price hike for food staples.

Last week in La Paz and neighboring El Alto, hungry Bolivians jostled in long lines to buy rice after much-delayed shipments finally arrived from Santa Cruz, the country’s economic engine some 850 kilometers away.

With the diesel shortage affecting everything from the operation of tractors to the sourcing of machinery parts, the shortage is also hurting farmers during the crucial planting season.

“Without diesel, there is no food for 2025,” said Klaus Frerking, the vice president of the Eastern Agricultural Chamber of Bolivia.

The prices of potatoes, onions and milk have doubled in El Alto’s main wholesale food market in the past month, vendors said, overshooting the country’s nearly 8% inflation rate.

Nervous Bolivians are cutting back on their consumption.

“You have to search a lot to find the cheapest food,” said 67-year-old Angela Mamani, struggling to pull together meals for her six grandchildren at El Alto’s open-air market Tuesday. She planned to buy vegetables but didn’t have enough cash and went home empty-handed.

This week, Arce’s government presented a 2025 budget — with a 12% increase in spending — that drew backlash from lawmakers and business leaders who said it would lead to more debt and more inflation.

While the governing Movement Toward Socialism party tears itself apart in the power struggle between Arce and Morales, both politicians have seen the economic morass as a way to strengthen their positions ahead of 2025 elections.

“They deny there are problems. They blame external contexts and conflicts,” said Bolivian economic analyst Gonzalo Chávez.

Morales’ supporters last month launched 24-day protest partly targeting Arce’s handling of the economy that blocked main roads and stranded commercial shipments, costing the government billions of dollars.

Security forces broke up the rallies almost a month ago. But on Tuesday, Arce’s government continued to blame Morales’ blockades for spawning the ubiquitous fuel lines.

“We need change,” said Geanina García, a 31-year-old architect scouring the grocery hub of El Alto for cheap deals — a once-routine errand that she said had turned into a nightmare.

“People don’t live off politics, they live day to day, off of what they produce and what they earn.” 

Interpol clamps down on cybercrime, arrests 1,006 suspects in Africa

DAKAR, SENEGAL — Interpol arrested 1,006 suspects in Africa during a massive two-month operation, clamping down on cybercrime that left tens of thousands of victims, including some who were trafficked, and produced millions in financial damages, the global police organization said Tuesday.

Operation Serengeti, a joint operation with Afripol, the African Union’s police agency, ran from September 2 to October 31 in 19 African countries and targeted criminals behind ransomware, business email compromise, digital extortion and online scams, the agency said in a statement.

“From multi-level marketing scams to credit card fraud on an industrial scale, the increasing volume and sophistication of cybercrime attacks is of serious concern,” said Valdecy Urquiza, the Secretary General of Interpol.

Interpol pinpointed 35,000 victims, with cases linked to nearly $193 million in financial losses worldwide, stating that local police authorities and private sector partners, including internet service providers, played a key role in the operation.

Jalel Chelba, Afripol’s executive director, said in the statement: “Through Serengeti, Afripol has significantly enhanced support for law enforcement in African Union Member States.”

Serengeti’s results were a “drastic increase” compared to operations in Africa in previous years, Enrique Hernandez Gonzalez, Interpol’s Assistant Director of Cybercrime Operations, told The Associated Press.

Interpol’s previous cybercrime operations in Africa had only led to 25 arrests in the last two years.

“Significant progress has been made, with participating countries enhancing their ability to work with intelligence and produce meaningful results,” Gonzalez said.

In Kenya, the police made nearly two dozen arrests in an online credit card fraud case linked to losses of $8.6 million. In the West African country of Senegal, officers arrested eight people, including five Chinese nationals, for a $6 million online Ponzi scheme.

Chelba said Afripol’s focus now includes emerging threats like Artificial Intelligence-driven malware and advanced cyberattack techniques.

Other dismantled networks included a group in Cameroon suspected of using a multi-level marketing scam for human trafficking, an international criminal group in Angola running an illegal virtual casino and a cryptocurrency investment scam in Nigeria, the agency said.

Interpol, which has 196 member countries and celebrated its centennial last year, works to help national police forces communicate with each other and track suspects and criminals in fields like counterterrorism, financial crime, child pornography, cybercrime and organized crime.

The world’s biggest — if not best-funded — police organization has been grappling with new challenges including a growing caseload of cybercrime and child sex abuse, and increasing divisions among its member countries.

Interpol had a total budget of about 176 million euros (about $188 million) last year, compared to more than 200 million euros at the European Union’s police agency, Europol, and some $11 billion at the FBI in the United States.

Feces and vomit fossils offer evidence explaining dinosaur supremacy

The way the dinosaurs relinquished their long dominance is well known. An asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, triggering a horrific mass extinction. But the way the dinosaurs — modest creatures initially — came to supremacy is less well understood.

New research that relied heavily on fossilized feces and vomit — evidence of who is eating what and who is eating whom – provides new clarity on how dinosaurs bested the competition during the Triassic Period. The study focused on a region in Poland with extensive fossils from this pivotal time.

First appearing roughly 230 million years ago, dinosaurs were at first overshadowed by other animals including large crocodile relatives — both terrestrial and semi-aquatic — and various plant-eaters including elephant-sized ones related to mammals and four-legged armored reptiles. By about 200 million years ago, dinosaurs reigned, their main competitors extinct.

“We approached the rise of dinosaurs in a completely novel way. We analyzed feeding evidence to deduce the ecological role of dinosaurs across their first 30 million years of evolution,” said paleontologist Martin Qvarnström of Uppsala University in Sweden, lead author of the study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The earliest dinosaurs and close relatives were opportunists, eating foods including bugs, fish and insects. Subsequently, larger and more specialized dinosaur predators evolved along with herbivorous dinosaurs apparently better adapted than competitors to exploit new plants that arose when the climate became more humid.

Feces fossils are called coprolites. Vomit fossils are called regurgitates. Together they are called bromalites. So why study this stuff? By examining undigested food — plants and prey — in bromalites, researchers can discern feeding patterns of various species and reconstruct an ecosystem’s food webs.

Hundreds of bromalites were examined, primarily coprolites.

“We studied over 100 kilograms of fossilized feces,” said study senior author Grzegorz Niedźwiedzki, a paleontologist and geologist at Uppsala University and the Polish Geological Institute.

How can researchers tell who left the feces or vomit? Skeletal fossils and footprints showed what animals were present at a given time. And the researchers deduced who produced a given coprolite based on factors including its size and shape, the type of undigested food and the nature of the digestive systems of living relatives of these extinct animals.

Take, for example, the 6-meter four-legged meat-eater Polonosuchus, a type of reptile called a rauisuchian that was related to crocs and was an apex predator alongside the early dinosaurs.

“We know that today’s crocodiles and alligators digest food for a long time and thoroughly. In their feces, undigested bones are very rarely found. Such coprolites — large, sausage-shaped, with highly digested mass — we found in a site where bones of Polonosuchus were also found,” Niedźwiedzki said.

“In contrast, in sites where there were bones and tracks of predatory dinosaurs, we found coprolites containing a lot of undigested remains. Some of them are full of pieces of bones, fish remains, and there are also teeth. You can see that all this passed through the digestive tract quickly and was not digested in the crocodile way,” Niedźwiedzki added.

Early members of the dinosaur evolutionary lineage were omnivorous, like 2-meter Silesaurus.

“The first dinosaur relative in the area, Silesaurus, was an opportunistic little thing that ate bugs, fish and plants. Some of the insects were amazingly well preserved,” Qvarnström said.

Big herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs began appearing late in the Triassic, which ended 201 million years ago.

Environmental changes linked to Earth’s increased volcanic activity precipitated a wider range of plants that ever-larger herbivorous dinosaurs exploited. This proliferation of big plant-eating dinosaurs encouraged the evolution of larger carnivorous dinosaurs.

The large non-dinosaur meat-eaters disappeared before the start of the subsequent Jurassic Period, completing the transition to dinosaur dominion. By 200 million years ago, meat-eating dinosaurs 8 meters long were present, alongside plant-eating dinosaurs 10 meters long.

Smok, a 6-meter strong-jawed carnivorous dinosaur relative, lived about 210 million years ago. Coprolites showed Smok’s predilection for bone-crushing, obtaining nutritious marrow in a feeding trait associated with much later dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus.

The coprolites of herbivorous dinosaurs offered surprises.

“Another interesting and very mysterious discovery was the finding of geochemical signals in the coprolites from burnt plant remains, as well as pieces of charcoal. Did the dinosaurs eat charcoal from burnt plants? Ferns, whose remains are in coprolites, may be toxic, and the charcoal may have neutralized these toxins,” Niedzwiedzki added.

US proposes new habitat protections in southern Rockies for Canada lynx

BILLINGS, MONTANA — U.S. wildlife officials finalized a recovery plan for imperiled populations of Canada lynx on Wednesday and proposed new habitat protections in the southern Rocky Mountains for the forest-dwelling wildcats that are threatened by climate change.

The fate of the proposal is uncertain under President-elect Donald Trump: Officials during the Republican’s first term sought unsuccessfully to strip lynx of protections that they’ve had since 2000 under the Endangered Species Act.

Almost 20,000 square kilometers of forests and mountains in Colorado and northern New Mexico are covered under the habitat proposal. That’s different from a previous plan that left out the southern Rockies and concentrated instead on recovery efforts elsewhere, including Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota and Maine.

“This is a significant change and a good one,” said Matthew Bishop, an attorney for Western Environmental Law Center who has been involved in efforts to protect lynx through court actions. “They weren’t really committing to conserve lynx in Colorado anymore, and now they are.”

Areas of protected habitat also are being added in Idaho and Montana. Protected areas in Wyoming would be sharply reduced under Wednesday’s proposal.

Wildlife officials said they were removing locations where they consider lynx unlikely to thrive in the future, while adding new areas that the latest science suggests are more suitable to their long-term survival.

Lynx are elusive animals that live in cold boreal forests and prey primarily on snowshoe hares.

They originally received federal protections because the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management didn’t have sufficient regulations in place to shield their populations from potential harm. Those protective rules are now in place, but climate change has emerged as a new, worsening threat.

Warmer temperatures are melting away the lynx’s snowy habitat and could decrease the availability of snowshoe hares. Declines for lynx are expected across the contiguous U.S. under even the most optimistic warming scenario that officials have considered.

Most areas suitable for lynx are in Canada and Alaska, where the animals are widespread and hunting and trapping of them is allowed.

Their numbers never were great in the contiguous U.S., which is at the southern fringe of the species range, but the hope is to maintain some population strongholds so they can persist in a warmer world.

The changes announced Wednesday follow a 2016 court ruling that faulted federal wildlife officials for not designating protections for lynx habitat in Colorado and some parts of Montana and Idaho.

There are more than 1,100 lynx in the contiguous U.S., according to estimates from scientists. Those numbers are expected to plummet in some areas, and officials are aiming for a minimum contiguous U.S. population of a combined 875 lynx over a 20-year period.

More than 200 lynx were reintroduced in Colorado beginning in 1999 and at the time their prospects were considered uncertain.

“There were concerns about whether it would stick,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lynx biologist Jim Zelenak. “But they do seem to be hanging on.”

Now that area could become one of the future population strongholds, with the southern Rockies in Colorado and the region around Yellowstone National Park are most likely to have temperatures favorable to lynx for the longest time, he said.

Maine has the most lynx currently but is expected to be hit harder by climate change.

“We’ve got this overarching threat of climate warming, and so we want to do everything we can to minimize the effects that we can control,” Zelenak said. “So we don’t want to put roads in the wrong places. We don’t want to permanently convert very much of the habitat at all in the hopes that we can keep these populations viable coming into a warming future.”

Habitat protections in Maine and Minnesota would remain unchanged under the proposal.

A final decision is expected late next year.

Nations warn of ‘obstruction’ at plastic talks

BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA — Dozens of countries warned Sunday that a handful of nations were obstructing efforts in South Korea to reach an ambitious landmark global treaty to curb plastic pollution.

With hours until negotiations are scheduled to end, delegates say a group of mostly oil-producing “like-minded countries” have refused to compromise on key sticking points.

Those include setting targets for reducing plastic production and phasing out chemicals known or believed to be harmful to human health.

“We also are worried by the continuing obstruction by the so-called like-minded countries,” Olga Givernet, France’s minister delegate for energy, told reporters.

Finding an agreement on an ambitious treaty “remains an absolute priority,” Givernet said, and “we are planning on pushing it.”

Plastic production is on track to triple by 2060, and over 90% of plastic is not recycled.

But while everyone negotiating in Busan agrees on the problem, they disagree on the solution.

Countries including Saudi Arabia and Russia insist the deal should focus only on waste and reject calls for binding global measures.

They have made their position clear in documents submitted in negotiations and during public plenary sessions, though neither delegation responded to repeated AFP requests for comment.

‘Blocking the process’

“It is disappointing to see that a small number of members remain unsupportive of the measures necessary to drive real change,” said Rwanda’s Juliet Kabera.

“We still have a few hours left in these negotiations, there is time to find common ground, but Rwanda cannot accept a toothless treaty,” she warned.

Fiji’s Sivendra Michael also called out a “very minority group” for “blocking the process.”

The latest draft text for the treaty contains a range of options, reflecting the ongoing divisions. A promised new version has been repeatedly delayed.

The talks are supposed to be the final round of negotiations after two years of discussion.

The venue has only been rented until mid-morning Monday, sources told AFP.

Portuguese delegate Maria Joao Teixeira said there were real fears talks could collapse and have to be extended to another round elsewhere.

“We are really trying to not have a weak treaty,” she told AFP.

Environmental groups have pushed ambitious countries to call a vote if progress stalls.

But observers caution that risks alienating even some countries in favor of a strong treaty.

Another option would be for the diplomat chairing the talks to simply gavel through an agreement over the objections of a handful of holdouts, they said.

That too holds risks, potentially embittering the remaining diplomatic process and jeopardizing adoption of a treaty down the road.

‘Hope in consensus’

Mexico’s head of delegation Camila Zepeda said she did not favor calling a vote.

“We have hope in consensus. The multilateral process is slow, but there is a possibility of having critical mass to move forward,” she told AFP.

“Showing this critical mass helps us so that the more contentious issues can be unblocked.”

German delegate Sebastian Unger also said many countries would prefer to avoid a vote.

“If you would leave out many important countries that you want to have on board, then the effects of the treaty [are impacted],” he told AFP.

Over 100 countries now support setting a target for production cuts, and dozens also back phasing out some chemicals and unnecessary plastic products.

But representatives of China and the United States, the world’s two top plastics producers, were absent from the stage at a news conference urging ambition.

“They are still considering, and we are hopeful that there will be some interest on their part,” said Mexico’s Zepeda.

“This coalition of the willing is an open invitation. And so it’s not like it’s them against us.”

Panama’s Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez meanwhile told colleagues that “history will not forgive us” for leaving Busan without an ambitious treaty.

“This is the time to step up or get out.”

Snow blankets parts of US during busy holiday travel weekend

BUFFALO, NEW YORK — The first big snowfall of the season blanketed towns along Lake Erie on Saturday in the middle of the hectic holiday travel and shopping weekend. Numbing cold and heavy snow are forecast to persist into next week and cause hazards in the Great Lakes, Plains and Midwest regions. 

The heavy snow led to a state of emergency declaration in parts of New York and a disaster declaration in Pennsylvania, with officials warning of dangerous conditions for Thanksgiving travelers trying to return home. 

“Travel will be extremely difficult and hazardous this weekend, especially in areas where multiple feet of snow may accumulate very quickly,” the National Weather Service said. 

Part of I-90 in Pennsylvania was closed, as were westbound lanes of the New York Thruway heading toward Pennsylvania. Nearly 2 feet (61 centimeters) of snow fell in parts of New York, Ohio and Michigan, and 29 inches (73 centimeters) was recorded in Pennsylvania’s northwestern tip. 

With roads in some parts impassable in northwestern Pennsylvania, scores of people took refuge overnight in the lobby and hallways of a fully booked Holiday Inn near I-90. Hotel staffer Jeremiah Weatherley said dozens of people rolled in as the snow piled up, and workers opened the conference room and gave them blankets to sleep on the floor. 

“It was hard to manage, but we had no choice,” he said. “They just showed up, and we don’t want to turn people away.” 

Weatherley was handing out bagels, juice and cereal Saturday morning as people helped one another dig out their cars from the snow. 

“Everyone helped each other,” he said. “It was pretty cool.” 

This week’s blast of Arctic air also brought temperatures of 10 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit below average to the Northern Plains, the weather service said, prompting cold advisories for parts of North Dakota. 

Frigid air was expected to move over the eastern third of the United States by Monday, with temperatures about 10 degrees below average. 

Parts of Michigan were battered by lake-effect snow, which happens when warm, moist air rising from a body of water mixes with cold dry air overhead. Bands of snow that have been rolling off Lake Superior for the past three days buried parts of the Upper Peninsula under 2 feet (61 centimeters) or more, said Lily Chapman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s office in Marquette, Michigan. 

Twenty-seven inches (69 centimeters) of snow was on the ground just northeast of Ironwood, in the Upper Peninsula’s western reaches, she said. Another 2 feet (61 centimeters) fell in Munising, in the eastern part of the peninsula. 

Chapman said continued lake-effect snow could add more than a foot (30.5 centimeters) over the eastern Upper Peninsula through Monday morning, with 6 to 10 inches (15 to 25 centimeters) or higher to the west. 

Meanwhile steady winds that trained snow bands Friday on Gaylord, Michigan, dumped 24.8 inches (63 centimeters), setting a new single-day record for the city, which sits in a region dotted by ski resorts, said Keith Berger, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Gaylord office. The previous record of 17.0 inches (43 centimeters) was from March 9, 1942. 

The snowfall was good news for Treetops Resort, which features 80 acres (32 hectares) of ski hill terrain among its 2,000 acres (809 hectares), said Doug Hoeh, the resort’s director of recreation. It boosted the base that snowmaking machines will be adding to in the coming days before the resort opens for the season next weekend. 

“Obviously when you get that much snowfall, it’s great for the snow hills, but it’s bad for the parking lots, so we’re kind of digging out,” Hoeh said. “But we’re close to being ready to pull the trigger on skiing, and the natural snowfall definitely helps.” 

In Pennsylvania, Governor Josh Shapiro signed a proclamation of disaster emergency and said parts of Erie County in the state’s northwest had already received nearly 2 feet (1 meter) of snow with more expected through Monday night. 

State Police responded to nearly 200 incidents during the 24-hour period from 6 a.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday, officials said. 

What to know about plastic pollution crisis as treaty talks conclude

BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA — The world’s nations will wrap up negotiating a treaty this weekend to address the global plastic pollution crisis.

Their meeting is scheduled to conclude Sunday or early Monday in Busan, South Korea, where many environmental organizations have flocked to push for a treaty to address the volume of production and toxic chemicals used in plastic products.

Greenpeace said it escalated its pressure Saturday by sending four international activists to Daesan, South Korea, who boarded a tanker headed into port to load chemicals used to make plastics.

Graham Forbes, who leads the Greenpeace delegation in Busan, said the action is meant to remind world leaders they have a clear choice: Deliver a treaty that protects people and the planet, or side with industry and sacrifice the health of every living person and future generations.

Here’s what to know about plastics:

Every year, the world produces more than 400 million tons of new plastic.

The use of plastics has quadrupled over the past 30 years. Plastic is ubiquitous. And every day, the equivalent of 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastic are dumped into the world’s oceans, rivers and lakes, the U.N. said. Most nations agreed to make the first global, legally binding plastic pollution accord, including in the oceans, by the end of 2024.

Plastic production could climb about 70% by 2040 without policy changes.

The production and use of plastics globally is set to reach 736 million tons by 2040, according to the intergovernmental Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Panama is leading an effort to address the exponential growth of plastic production as part of the treaty, supported by more than 100 countries. There’s just too much plastic, said Juan Carlos Monterrey, head of Panama’s delegation.

“If we don’t have production in this treaty, it is not only going to be horribly sad, but the treaty may as well be called the greenwashing recycling treaty, not the plastics treaty,” he said in an interview. “Because the problem is not going to be fixed.”

China, the United States and Germany are the biggest plastics players.

China was by far the biggest exporter of plastic products in 2023, followed by Germany and the U.S., according to the Plastics Industry Association.

Together, the three nations account for 33% of the total global plastics trade, the association said.

The United States supports having an article in the treaty that addresses supply, or plastic production, a senior member of the U.S. delegation told The Associated Press Saturday.

Most plastic ends up as waste

Less than 10% of plastics are recycled. Most of the world’s plastic goes to landfills, pollutes the environment or is burned.

Sarah Dunlop, head of plastics and human health at the Minderoo Foundation, said chemicals are leaching out of plastics and “making us sick.”

The International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Plastics held an event about the impact of plastics Saturday on the sidelines of the talks. They want the treaty to fully recognize their rights and the universal human right to a healthy, clean, safe and sustainable environment.

Juan Mancias of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation in Texas spoke about feeling a spiritual connection to the land.

“Five hundred years ago, we had clean water, clean air, and there was no plastics,” he said. “What happened?”

Many plastics are used for packaging

About 40% of all plastics are used in packaging, according to the United Nations. This includes single-use plastic food and beverage containers — water bottles, takeout containers, coffee lids, straws and shopping bags — that often end up polluting the environment.

U.N. Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen told negotiators in Busan the treaty must tackle this problem.

“Are there specific plastic items that we can live without, those that so often leak into the environment? Are there alternatives to these items? This is an issue we must agree on,” she said.

Chinese scientists rush to climate-proof potatoes

YANQING, CHINA — In a research facility in the northwest of Beijing, molecular biologist Li Jieping and his team harvest a cluster of seven unusually small potatoes, one as tiny as a quail’s egg, from a potted plant.

Grown under conditions that simulate predictions of higher temperatures at the end of the century, the potatoes provide an ominous sign of future food security.

At just 136 grams, the tubers weigh less than half that of a typical potato in China, where the most popular varieties are often twice the size of a baseball.

China is the world’s biggest producer of potatoes, which are crucial to global food security because of their high yield relative to other staple crops.

But they are particularly vulnerable to heat, and climate change, driven by fossil fuel emissions, is pushing temperatures to dangerous new heights while also worsening drought and flooding.

With an urgent need to protect food supplies, Li, a researcher at the International Potato Center (CIP) in Beijing, is leading a three-year study into the effects of higher temperatures on the vegetable. His team is focusing on China’s two most common varieties.

“I worry about what will happen in the future,” Li said. “Farmers will harvest fewer potato tubers, it will influence food security.”

Li’s team grew their crop over three months in a walk-in chamber set at 3 degrees Celsius above the current average temperature in northern Hebei and Inner Mongolia, the higher altitude provinces where potatoes are usually grown in China.

Their research, published in the journal Climate Smart Agriculture this month, found the higher temperatures accelerated tuber growth by 10 days, but cut potato yields by more than half.

Under current climate policies, the world is facing as much as 3.1 C of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100, according to a United Nations report released in October.

Farmers in China say they are already feeling the effect of extreme weather events.

In Inner Mongolia, dozens of workers clutching white sacks rush to gather potatoes dug up from the soil before the next downpour.

“The biggest challenge for potatoes this year is the heavy rain,” said manager Wang Shiyi. “It has caused various diseases… and greatly slowed down the harvest progress.”

Meanwhile, seed potato producer Yakeshi Senfeng Potato Industry Company has invested in aeroponic systems where plants are grown in the air under controlled conditions.

Farmers are increasingly demanding potato varieties that are higher-yielding and less susceptible to disease, particularly late blight, which caused the Irish Potato Famine of the mid-19th century and thrives in warm and humid conditions.

“Some new and more aggressive (late blight) strains have begun to appear, and they are more resistant to traditional prevention and control methods,” said general manager Li Xuemin, explaining the Inner Mongolia-based company’s strategy.

The research by CIP, which is headquartered in Lima, is part of a collaborative effort with the Chinese government to help farmers adapt to the warmer, wetter conditions.

In the greenhouse outside Li’s lab, workers swab pollen on white potato flowers to develop heat-tolerant varieties.

Li says Chinese farmers will need to make changes within the next decade, planting during spring instead of the start of summer, or moving to even higher altitudes to escape the heat.

“Farmers have to start preparing for climate change,” Li said. “If we don’t find a solution, they will make less money from lower yields and the price of potatoes may rise.” 

Foreign smartphone sales in China drop 44% in October, data show

New data released Wednesday from a Chinese government-affiliated research firm showed sales of foreign-branded smartphones, including Apple’s iPhone, fell 44.25% year-on-year in China in October, while overall phone sales in China have increased 1.8%, Reuters reported.

The data released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology revealed sales of foreign-branded phones in China decreased to 6.22 million units last month, down from 11.149 million units a year earlier.

The decrease of foreign phone sales comes in the wake of Chinese tech conglomerate Huawei’s rise to the top of the phone market in China.

Huawei was widely popular in China’s smartphone market last year when it released the Mate 60 Pro, a phone with a tiny computer chip more advanced than any other chip previously made by a Chinese company.

Chinese consumers have eagerly embraced Huawei’s smartphones, drawn to the appeal of locally made technology — an option that has swayed many who might have previously chosen iPhones.

On Tuesday, the Chinese phone maker launched the next generation of the Mate 60 Pro, the Mate 70 series. The smartphone was described by Huawei’s consumer group chairman Richard Yu as the “smartest” Mate phone, The New York Times reported.

The Mate 70 series features hardware and software that are the most independent from Western influence to date. Highlights of Huawei’s newest phone include artificial intelligence-enabled functions and improved photography. The phone uses an operating system of HarmonyOS, which allows the smartphones to connect with smart devices.

Huawei’s ability to self-supply the chips required for its hardware and software represents a notable development, following previous U.S. measures to restrict the company’s access to key partners and suppliers.

AI technology relies on advanced semiconductor chips, a critical resource that has received attention amid tensions between Beijing and Washington, as both countries compete to dominate the advanced technology industry.

Apple’s iPhone 16 features AI capabilities, but these features have yet to be implemented in iPhones in China.

Apple, which considers China its second-most important market, has seen its market share decrease substantially. Apple CEO Tim Cook is traveling to China this week for the third time this year to attend an industry conference.

Alarm over high rate of HIV infections among young women, girls

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N.’s children’s fund raised the alarm on Friday over the high rate of new HIV infections among young women and girls, warning they lacked access to prevention and treatment.

In a report ahead of world AIDS day on Sunday, UNICEF said that 96,000 girls and 41,000 boys aged 15-19 were newly infected with HIV in 2023, meaning seven out of 10 new adolescent infections were among girls.

In sub-Saharan Africa, nine out of 10 new HIV infections among 15- 19-year-olds were among girls in the most recent period for which data is available.

“Children and adolescents are not fully reaping the benefits of scaled up access to treatment and prevention services,” said UNICEF associate director of HIV/AIDS Anurita Bains.

“Yet children living with HIV must be prioritized when it comes to investing resources and efforts to scale up treatment for all, this includes the expansion of innovative testing technologies.”

As many as 77% of adults living with HIV have access to anti-retroviral therapy, but just 57% of children 14 and younger, and 65% of teenagers aged 15-19, can obtain lifesaving medicine.

Children 14 and younger account for only 3% of those living with HIV, but account for 12% — 76,000 — of AIDS-related deaths in 2023.

Around 1.3 million people contracted the disease in 2023, according to a report from the UNAIDS agency.

That is still more than three times higher than needed to reach the U.N.’s goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

Around 630,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses last year, the lowest level since a peak of 2.1 million in 2004, the report said ahead of World AIDS Day on Sunday.

Much of the progress was attributed to antiretroviral treatments that can reduce the amount of the virus in the blood of patients.

Out of the nearly 40 million people living with HIV around the world, some 9.3 million are not receiving treatment, the report warned. 

SunFed recalls cucumbers in US, Canada due to potential salmonella

Cucumbers shipped to 13 U.S. states and five Canadian provinces have been recalled because of potential salmonella contamination, the Food and Drug Administration said this week.

SunFed Produce, based in Arizona, recalled the cucumbers sold between October 12 and November 26, the FDA said Thursday.

No illnesses were immediately reported. People who bought cucumbers during the window should check with the store where they purchased them to see if the produce is part of the recall. Wash items and surfaces that may have been in contact with the produce using hot, soapy water or a dishwasher.

Salmonella can cause symptoms that begin six hours to six days after ingesting the bacteria and include diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps. Most people recover without treatment within a week, but young children, people older than 65 and those with weakened immune systems can become seriously ill.

Earlier this summer, a separate salmonella outbreak in cucumbers sickened 450 people in the United States.

Some Zimbabwean farmers turn to maggots to survive drought and thrive

NYANGAMBE, ZIMBABWE — At first, the suggestion to try farming maggots spooked Mari Choumumba and other farmers in Nyangambe, a region in southeastern Zimbabwe where drought wiped out the staple crop of corn.

After multiple cholera outbreaks in the southern African nation resulting from extreme weather and poor sanitation, flies were largely seen as something to exterminate, not breed.

“We were alarmed,” Choumumba said, recalling a community meeting where experts from the government and the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, broached the idea.

People had flocked to the gathering in hope of news about food aid. But many stepped back when told it was about training on farming maggots for animal feed and garden manure.

“People were like, ‘What? These are flies. Flies bring cholera,’” Choumumba said.

A year later, the 54-year-old walks with a smile to a smelly cement pit covered by wire mesh where she feeds rotting waste to maggots — her new meal ticket.

After harvesting the insects about once a month, Choumumba turns them into protein-rich feed for her free-range chickens that she eats and sells.

Up to 80% of chicken production costs were gobbled up by feed for rural farmers before they took up maggot farming. Many couldn’t afford the $35 charged by stores for a 50-kilogram (110-pound) bag of poultry feed, said Francis Makura, a specialist with a USAID program aimed at broadening revenue streams for farmers affected by climate change.

But maggot farming reduces production costs by about 40%, he said.

Black soldier fly

The maggots are offspring of the black soldier fly, which originates in tropical South America. Unlike the house fly, it is not known to spread disease.

Their life cycle lasts just weeks, and they lay between 500 and 900 eggs. The larvae devour decaying organic items — from rotting fruit and vegetables to kitchen scraps and animal manure — and turn them into a rich protein source for livestock.

“It is even better than the crude protein we get from soya,” said Robert Musundire, a professor specializing in agricultural science and entomology at Chinhoyi University of Technology in Zimbabwe, which breeds the insects and helps farmers with breeding skills.

Donors and governments have pushed for more black soldier fly maggot farming in Africa because of its low labor and production costs and huge benefits to agriculture, the continent’s mainstay that is under pressure from climate change and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In Uganda, the maggots helped plug a fertilizer crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. In Nigeria and Kenya, they are becoming a commercial success.

In Zimbabwe

The Zimbabwean government and partners piloted it among farmers struggling with securing soya meal for their animals. A World Bank-led project later used it as a recovery effort for communities affected by a devastating 2019 cyclone.

Now it is becoming a lifesaver for some communities in the country of 15 million people where repeated droughts make it difficult to grow corn. It’s not clear how many people across the country are involved in maggot-farming projects.

At first, “a mere 5%” of farmers that Musundire, the professor, approached agreed to venture into maggot farming. Now that’s up to “about 50%,” he said, after people understood the protein benefits and the lack of disease transmission.

The “yuck factor” was an issue. But necessity triumphed, he said.

With the drought decimating crops and big livestock such as cattle — a traditional symbol of wealth and status and a source of labor — small livestock such as chickens are helping communities recover more quickly.

“They can fairly raise a decent livelihood out of the resources they have within a short period of time,” Musundire said.

Reduces waste, too

It also helps the environment. Zimbabwe produces about 1.6 million tons of waste annually, 90% of which can be recycled or composted, according to the country’s Environmental Management Agency. Experts say feeding it to maggots can help reduce greenhouse emissions in a country where garbage collection is erratic.

At a plot near the university, Musundire and his students run a maggot breeding center in the city of 100,000 people. The project collects over 35 metric tons a month in food waste from the university’s canteens as well as vegetable markets, supermarkets, abattoirs, food processing companies and beer brewers.

“Food waste is living, it respires and it contributes to the generation of greenhouse gases,” Musundire said.

According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, food loss — which occurs in the stages before reaching the consumer — and food waste after sale account for 8% to 10% of greenhouse gas emissions globally, or about five times that of the aviation sector.

The university project converts about 20 to 30 metric tons of the waste into livestock protein or garden manure in about two weeks.

Choumambo said people often sneer as she goes around her own community collecting banana peels and other waste that people toss out at the market and bus station.

“I tell them we have good use for it, it is food for our maggots,” she said. She still has to contend with “ignorant” people who accuse maggot farmers of “breeding cholera.”

But she cares little about that as her farm begins to thrive.

‘Sweet smell of food’

From bare survival, it is becoming a profitable venture. She can harvest up to 15 kilograms (about 33 pounds) of maggots in 21 days, turning out 375 kilograms (826.7 pounds) of chicken feed after mixing it with drought-tolerant crops such as millets, cowpeas and sunflower and a bit of salt.

Choumambo sells some of the feed to fellow villagers at a fraction of the cost charged by stores for traditional animal feed. She also sells eggs and free-range chickens, a delicacy in Zimbabwe, to restaurants. She’s one of 14 women in her village taking up the project.

“I never imagined keeping and surviving on maggots,” she said, taking turns with a neighbor to mix rotting vegetables, corn meal and other waste in a tank using a shovel.

“Many people would puke at the sight and the stench. But this is the sweet smell of food for the maggots, and for us, the farmers.”

What Black Friday’s history tells us about holiday shopping in 2024

NEW YORK — The holiday shopping season is about to reach full speed with Black Friday, which kicks off the post-Thanksgiving retail rush this week.

The annual sales event no longer creates the midnight mall crowds or doorbuster mayhem of recent decades, in large part due to the ease of online shopping and habits forged during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hoping to entice equivocating consumers, retailers already have spent weeks bombarding customers with ads and early offers. Still, whether visiting stores or clicking on countless emails promising huge savings, tens of millions of U.S. shoppers are expected to spend money on Black Friday itself this year.

Industry forecasts estimate that 183.4 million people will shop in U.S. stores and online between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, according to the National Retail Federation and consumer research firm Prosper Insights & Analytics. Of that number, 131.7 million are expected to shop on Black Friday.

At the same time, earlier and earlier Black Friday-like promotions, as well as the growing strength of other shopping events (hello, Cyber Monday), continue to change the holiday spending landscape.

Here’s what you need to know about Black Friday’s history and where things stand in 2024.

When is Black Friday in 2024?

Black Friday falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving each year, which is November 29 this year.

How old is Black Friday? Where does its name come from?

The term “Black Friday” is several generations old, but it wasn’t always associated with the holiday retail frenzy that we know today. The gold market crash of September 1869, for example, was notably dubbed Black Friday.

The phrase’s use in relation to shopping the day after Thanksgiving, however, is most often traced to Philadelphia in the mid-20th century — when police and other city workers had to deal with large crowds that congregated before the annual Army-Navy football game and to take advantage of seasonal sales.

“That’s why the bus drivers and cab drivers call today ‘Black Friday.’ They think in terms of headaches it gives them,” a Gimbels department store sales manager told The Associated Press in 1975 while watching a police officer try to control jaywalkers the day after Thanksgiving.

Earlier references date back to the 1950s and 1960s.

Jie Zhang, a professor of marketing at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, points to a 1951 mention of “Black Friday” in a New York-based trade publication — which noted that many workers simply called in sick the day after Thanksgiving in hopes of having a long holiday weekend.

Starting in the 1980s, national retailers began claiming that Black Friday represented when they went from operating in the red to in the black thanks to holiday demand. But since many retail companies now operate in the black at various times of the year, this interpretation should be taken with a grain of salt, experts say.

How has Black Friday evolved?

In recent decades, Black Friday became infamous for floods of people in jam-packed stores. Endless lines of shoppers camped out at midnight in hopes of scoring deep discounts.

But online shopping has made it possible to make most, if not all, holiday purchases without ever stepping foot inside a store. And while foot traffic at malls and other shopping areas has bounced back since the start of the pandemic, e-commerce isn’t going away.

November sales at brick-and-mortar stores peaked more than 20 years ago. In 2003, for example, e-commerce accounted for 1.7% of total retail sales in the fourth quarter, according to Commerce Department data.

Unsurprisingly, online sales make up a much bigger slice of the pie today. For last year’s holiday season, e-commerce accounted for about 17.1% of all nonadjusted retail sales in the fourth quarter, Commerce Department data show. That’s up from 12.7% seen at the end of 2019.

Beyond the rise of online shopping, some big-ticket items that used to get shoppers in the door on the Black Friday — like a new TV — are significantly cheaper than they were decades ago, notes Jay Zagorsky, a clinical associate professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.

“There is less need to stand in line at midnight when the items typically associated with doorbuster sales are now much cheaper,” Zagorsky told The Associated Press via email. He pointed to Bureau of Labor Statistics data that show the average price for a TV has fallen 75% since 2014.

While plenty of people will do most of their Black Friday shopping online, projections from the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights indicated that most Black Friday shoppers (65%) still planned to shop in stores this year.

Black Friday ‘month’ and the rise of Cyber Monday

It’s no secret that Black Friday sales don’t last just 24 hours anymore. Emails promising holiday deals now start arriving before Halloween.

“Black Friday is no longer the start of the holiday shopping season. It has become the crescendo of the holiday shopping season” during what now feels like “Black Friday month,” Zhang said. Some retailers have updated their official marketing to refer to “Black Friday week.”

Retailers trying to get a head start on the competition and to manage shipping logistics helps explain the rush, Zhang said. Offering early holiday deals spreads out purchases, giving shippers more breathing room to complete orders. Zhang therefore doesn’t expect the five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year to cause significant strain because retailers would have taken them into account.

Linking pre-Thanksgiving sales with Black Friday is also a marketing technique since it’s a name consumers recognize and associate with big, limited-time bargains, Zhang said.

Multiple post-Thanksgiving sales events keep shoppers enticed after Black Friday, including Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, which the National Retail Federation’s online arm designated in 2005.

U.S. consumers spent a record $12.4 billion on Cyber Monday in 2023, and $15.7 million per minute during the day’s peak sales hour, according to Adobe Analytics. On Black Friday, they spent $9.8 billion online, Adobe Analytics said.

Enough people still enjoy shopping in person after Thanksgiving that the activity is unlikely to become extinct, Boston University’s Zagorsky said.

While Black Friday’s significance “is being slightly diminished” over time, the shopping event is still “a way to connect with others,” he said. “This social aspect is important and will not disappear, ensuring that Black Friday is still an important day for retailers.”

WHO wants bird flu surveillance stepped up 

geneva — The World Health Organization on Thursday urged countries to step up surveillance for bird flu after the first case was detected in a child in the United States. 

A small but growing number of H5N1 avian influenza infections have been detected in humans around the world in recent years, Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention director,  said at a press conference. 

“What we really need globally, in the U.S. and abroad, is much stronger surveillance in animals: in wild birds, in poultry, in animals that are known to be susceptible to infection, which include swine, which include dairy cattle, to better understand the circulation in these animals,” she said. 

More outbreaks

H5N1 emerged in 1996, but since 2020, the number of outbreaks in birds has grown exponentially, alongside an increase in the number of infected mammals. 

The strain has led to the deaths of tens of millions of poultry, with wild birds and land and marine mammals also infected. 

Human cases recorded in Europe and the United States since the virus surged have largely been mild. 

In March, infections were detected in several dairy herds across the United States. 

U.S. health officials believe the risk for the general public is low, though albeit higher for those working directly with livestock, including birds, dairy cattle and more. 

Last Friday, U.S. authorities said a child in California had become the first in the United States to test positive for bird flu infection. Health officials offered checks and preventive treatment to exposed contacts at the youth’s child care center. 

The child had mild symptoms and was said to be recovering at home following treatment with flu antivirals. 

“Including this most recent case, 55 human cases of H5 bird flu have now been reported in the United States during 2024, with 29 in California,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. 

No human-to-human infections seen

Van Kerkhove said all but two of those had known exposure to infected animals. 

“We have not seen evidence of human-to-human infection. But again, for each of these human detected cases, we want to see a very thorough investigation taking place,” she said. 

“We need much stronger efforts in terms of reducing the risk of infection between animals to new species and to humans,” she added, notably through testing and proper protective equipment. 

Van Kerkhove, who was the WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead, stressed the importance of preparing “for when or if we will be in a situation where we are in a flu pandemic.” 

“We’re not in that situation yet, but we do need more vigilance,” Van Kerkhove said. 

In wake of G20, Gulf states boost ties to Brazil, Latin America

Middle East analysts are welcoming a series of agreements concluded during the recent summit in Brazil of the 20 biggest economies, saying they open new avenues for Gulf Cooperation Council states to strengthen economic relations with emerging markets across Latin America.

Among other developments, Crown Prince Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates signed a memorandum of agreement with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. It is designed to establish a joint mechanism “aimed at promoting UAE investments in strategic sectors in Brazil,” according to the Abu Dhabi news site Gulf News.

A second memorandum of agreement between the foreign ministries of the two countries called for unspecified cooperation in Africa, Gulf News said.

Saudi Arabia, for its part, concluded a memorandum of agreement establishing a Saudi-Brazilian Coordination Council that is intended to foster cooperation across sectors that include economic, diplomatic and strategic, according to the Saudi Press Agency.

The agreements build on well-established ties between the Gulf Cooperation Council states and Brazil, a major agricultural exporter whose efforts to address global food insecurity align with the GCC’s need to secure vital agricultural imports, including meat, cereals and coffee.

The Gulf countries, for their part, are well positioned to provide Brazil with phosphate, aluminum and oil.

Brazil is already the GCC’s largest trading partner in Latin America, followed by Mexico and Argentina. In 2022, more than 70% of Brazil’s exports to Arab countries consisted of agricultural products such as meat and grains.

Zubair Iqbal, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute and former International Monetary Fund official, told VOA that Brazil offers the GCC states promising opportunities for trade and investment.

But he noted that tangible progress toward enhanced GCC-Latin American cooperation remains largely reliant on bilateral agreements rather than multination initiatives, limiting their impact.

“While there have been general exhortations for furthering trade relations, specific responses will be a function of bilateral agreements,” he said. “Prospects for more trade and increased investment remain strong, especially with Brazil. However, it will depend upon national interests and alternative options.”

According to the latest available data for 2022, GCC countries, particularly the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have increasingly expanded their investment footprint in Latin America, totaling $4 billion between 2016 and 2021.

The UAE’s sovereign wealth fund, Mubadala, has been a key player, with investments exceeding $5 billion in Brazil since the early 2010s. Notable projects include an oil refinery, a toll road and collaborations with Brazil’s largest biofuel producer. Mubadala has plans to invest an additional $1 billion annually in Brazil.

UAE-based JFR Investments, owned by an Angolan businessman, has meanwhile signed significant mining agreements since 2022 with companies in Brazil and Peru. And Dubai-based DP World manages port infrastructure across Latin America.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is also deepening its ties in Latin America. In June 2024, PIF hosted a conference in Rio de Janeiro, where it announced $15 billion in planned projects for Brazil.

In August 2023, Saudi Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih toured seven Latin American nations to explore opportunities in sectors such as mining, food processing, agriculture, transport, health care, entertainment, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology.

Prior Saudi investments in the region include the acquisition by Saudi Aramco of Chilean fuel retailer Esmax and a $500 million investment by the Saudi Fund for Development in an Argentine gas pipeline.

Kevin Funk, a political economist specializing in Latin America, told VOA that Brazilian companies are meanwhile showing greater interest in investing in the Gulf as the region diversifies its economy away from dependence on oil.

There is now an array of large and small Brazilian businesses operating in the Gulf countries, and in numerous sectors, including food, clothing and cosmetics, Funk said. Among them is Sao Paulo-based JBS, the world’s largest meat processor, which has established a significant presence in the Gulf.

“Yet the fundamentals of the interregional commercial relationship remain largely constant, with Brazil and certain other Latin American countries mostly exporting primary products such as agricultural goods and minerals to the region, while mainly importing fossil fuels and fertilizers,” he said.

Brazil’s reliance on Gulf fertilizers has grown, partly due to supply chain disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

However, domestic challenges in Latin America — such as slow economic growth, political instability and inequality — have limited the region’s ability to prioritize interregional ties, Funk said.

Kenyan clinics provide health care to truck drivers, sex workers

A clinic initiative in Kenya aims to provide health care to vulnerable mobile populations such as truck drivers and commercial sex workers. The goal is to combat the spread of disease across borders in Africa. Juma Majanga reports from the transit town of Mlolongo in Kenya. Camera: Amos Wangwa

Cryptocurrency investors anticipate boom under Trump

Cryptocurrency investors have big hopes for the approaching presidency of Donald Trump, who campaigned this year as a champion of digital currencies. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns has our story.

HIV activist to use Charlize Theron’s Instagram for a day

Geneva, Switzerland — A young South African activist living with HIV will take over Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron’s Instagram account on World AIDS Day, the United Nations said Thursday.

Ibanomonde Ngema, a 21-year-old activist, will be given the reins to the South African-born actress’s global account @charlizeafrica, with some 7.6 million followers, on December 1, UNAIDS said in a statement.

The takeover by Ngema, who was born with HIV and has dedicated her advocacy work to dispelling myths and reducing stigma around HIV, will aim to bring awareness to the first-hand experiences of young people living with HIV, it said.

Theron, a so-called UN Messenger of Peace who has long advocated for tackling the systemic inequalities that drive HIV infections among young women and girls, insisted in the statement that “ending AIDS is within reach.”

But, she warned, “only if we completely dismantle harmful patterns of stigma and discrimination through laws, policies, and practices that protect people living with HIV.”

Theron won a best actress Oscar for her lead role in the 2004 film “Monster” and has more recently starred in pictures such as “Mad Max: Fury Road.”

“I have always loved watching Charlize Theron on the big screen and have long been inspired by her using her influence to help people around the world, especially in our home country of South Africa,” Ngema said in the statement.

The announcement came after UNAIDS this week released a new report that showed how rights violations exacerbate the vulnerability of women and girls to HIV.

Last year, women and girls accounted for 62% of all new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa, UNAIDS said.