Scientists say climate change is becoming more pressing with news of melting permafrost and rising sea levels. Scientists have been urging people around the globe to reduce emissions of climate warming carbon, but the Salk Institute in San Diego is taking a different approach. There, scientists are working on developing plants that would capture more carbon than plants do now and store it away for centuries, preventing it from being released back into the atmosphere. Genia Dulot has the story.
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Month: October 2018
A U.N. employee in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has tested positive for Ebola, the first such incident during the current outbreak, according to the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission.
“I am writing today to inform you that my leadership team and I have regretfully just received news that a U.N. colleague based in Beni has tested positive for Ebola and is now receiving the necessary medical treatment,” Leila Zerrougui wrote in the letter obtained by the Reuters news agency.
Zerrougui said the employee had not been to work for several weeks and that officials were tracing the person’s contacts.
The news came after health officials warned that the rate of new Ebola cases had more than doubled since September.
Rise in cases a concern
The sharp rise has health officials concerned that the situation in eastern DRC Is at a crossroads.
Either the outbreak is getting worse, or local residents are finally responding to education campaigns and government edicts and are no longer resisting health workers.
The death toll stood at 125 as of Friday, out of 201 reported Ebola cases (166 confirmed and 35 probable), according to the DRC’s health ministry.
This outbreak, the country’s 10th, initially was reported Aug. 1.
“The fact that we see more cases could also be a positive sign,” said Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, speaking by phone from Geneva on Thursday. “… We have seen in the past that sometimes people would hide sick ones or would actively run away” from aid workers charged with tracing the contacts of infected patients — a step essential to curbing the deadly disease’s spread.
Attack keeps workers inside
But insecurity is complicating the health community’s response in the outbreak’s epicenter in the North Kivu region, where more than 100 armed opposition groups operate, and more than 1 million people have been displaced.
The jump in reported cases follows a Sept. 22 armed attack in Beni, a town near the border with Uganda and the center for aid efforts. Eighteen people died, including 14 civilians, according to the army.
Jasarevic said WHO health workers were forced to stay indoors for two full days following the attack.
“Operations were hampered by the insecurity,” Jasarevic said. “… And not only because of the [health] teams not being able to go out, but also because of the reaction of the population.”
Red Cross volunteers attacked
Other violence has impeded aid work in the region. Last week, three Red Cross volunteers on an Ebola burial team were attacked and injured while conducting their duties in the northeast city of Butembo, according to the DRC Red Cross. It said, in a statement, that two of the volunteers were being treated for serious wounds.
The Red Cross statement reminded people that the body of an Ebola victim is highly infectious and requires careful handling. The Ebola virus spreads through contact with bodily fluids.
In addition, some families have refused to allow aid workers to check on and treat potential patients, and other victims have fled, raising the possibility that the virus could spread to neighboring Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan.
Jasarevic said local people’s “reaction to the Ebola response is sort of linked to their reaction to the general insecurity, basically thinking that if all these authorities, including international actors, are not able to provide security, how it would be then possible for them to try to control the outbreak?”
The WHO initially had predicted the disease possibly could be brought under control within three months, thanks in part to a vaccine that has proven effective for people who have been exposed but haven’t shown symptoms, and new treatment drugs for people who have contracted Ebola.
But Peter Salama, WHO’s executive director of the health emergencies program, said Thursday that the response timetable needed revision.
“We anticipate that now we’ll be looking at least another three or four months in order to really stem this outbreak, with a strong focus again on Beni and surrounding areas,” Salama said at a Geneva news conference.
This report originated in VOA’s English to Africa service. VOA’s Carol Guensburg contributed.
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Artists are putting the finishing touches on an 82-foot-long (24-meter-long) blue whale made from discarded plastic that will be on display near San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge to raise awareness about ocean pollution.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium said Friday a blue whale can weigh 300,000 pounds (136,000 kilograms) — about the amount of plastic scientists say enters the ocean every nine minutes.
A 2015 study by Jenna Jambeck, an environmental engineer at the University of Georgia, found 9 million tons (8 million metric tons) of plastic waste enter the ocean annually.
The sculpture created from plastic water bottles, lids and bags by artists Joel Deal Stockdill and Yustina Salnikova will be publicly unveiled Saturday.
It is located in Crissy Field, the heart of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
It is sponsored by the aquarium in partnership with the National Park Service and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.
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Facebook says hackers accessed data from 29 million accounts as part of the security breach disclosed two weeks ago, fewer than the 50 million it initially believed were affected.
The hackers accessed name, email addresses or phone numbers from these accounts, according to Facebook. For 14 million of them, hackers got even more data, such as hometown, birthdate, the last 10 places they checked into or the 15 most recent searches.
An additional 1 million accounts were affected, but hackers didn’t get any information from them.
Facebook isn’t giving a breakdown of where these users are, but says the breach was “fairly broad.” It plans to send messages to people whose accounts were hacked.
Facebook said third-party apps and Facebook apps like WhatsApp and Instagram were unaffected by the breach.
Facebook said the FBI is investigating, but asked the company not to discuss who may be behind the attack. The company said it hasn’t ruled out the possibility of smaller-scale attacks that used the same vulnerability.
Facebook has said the attackers gained the ability to “seize control” of those user accounts by stealing digital keys the company uses to keep users logged in. They could do so by exploiting three distinct bugs in Facebook’s code. The company said it has fixed the bugs and logged out affected users to reset those digital keys.
At the time, CEO Mark Zuckerberg – whose own account was compromised – said attackers would have had the ability to view private messages or post on someone’s account, but there’s no sign that they did.
World stocks are climbing Friday after two days of sharp losses. Major U.S. stock indexes are up more than 1 percent, but they’re still on track for their biggest one-week loss since late March.
Technology and internet companies were some of the hardest hit over the last two days and they led the market higher Friday. Apple climbed 2.7 percent to $220.18. Consumer-focused companies also rallied, as Amazon jumped 3.8 percent to $1,783.96 and Netflix surged 4.7 percent to $336.30.
The S&P 500 index climbed 37 points, or 1.4 percent, to 2,766 at 9:45 a.m. Eastern time. The benchmark index tumbled 5.3 percent over the past two days and as of Thursday it had fallen for six consecutive days. The S&P is down 5.6 percent from its latest record high, set Sept. 20.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 305 points, or 1.2 percent, to 25,358. The Nasdaq composite surged 138 points, or 1.9 percent, to 7,467. The Russell 2000 index gained 17 points, or 1.2 percent, to 1,563. That index, which is made up of smaller and more U.S.-focused companies, has fallen into a 10 percent “correction” since reaching a record high at the end of August.
On the New York Stock Exchange, winners outnumbered losers eight to one.
Stocks in Europe and Asia also recovered some of their recent losses. The French CAC 40 and the DAX in Germany both rose 0.8 percent while Britain’s FTSE 100 was 0.7 percent higher. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index gained 0.5 percent after sinking early in the day and following a nearly 4 percent loss on Thursday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng surged 2.1 percent and the Kospi in South Korea rose 1.5 percent.
The market’s recent losing streak started when strong economic data and positive comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell helped set off a wave of selling in the bond market. Investors were betting that the U.S. economy would keep growing at a healthy pace. The sales pushed bond prices lower and yields higher. That drove interest rates sharply higher, which worried investors who felt that a big increase in interest rates could eventually stifle economic growth. Higher yields also make bonds more appealing to investors versus stocks.
The worst losses went to stocks that have led the market in recent years, including technology companies, as well as companies that do better when economic growth speeds up, like industrial firms.
Banks rose as they began to report their third-quarter results. Citigroup jumped 2.4 percent to $70.04. Last year’s corporate tax cut and rising interest rates have helped banks make more money.
Bond prices turned lower as the stock market stabilized. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 3.16 percent from 3.13 percent.
High-dividend stocks lagged the rest of the market, and utilities and household goods makers were little changed. Those stocks held up a bit better than the rest of the market over the last six days. Investors view them as relatively safe, steady assets that look better when growth is uncertain and the rest of the market is in turmoil.
U.S. crude oil added 0.6 percent to $71.43 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, the international standard, was up 0.6 percent to $80.77 a barrel in London.
The dollar rose to 112.17 yen from 111.94 yen. The euro fell to $1.1548 from $1.1594.
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Just in case any of the global central bankers and finance ministers gathered in Indonesia missed the message delivered repeatedly this week, the host nation said it again Friday: Everyone stands to lose if trade wars are allowed to escalate.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo didn’t mention the United States or China, the world’s two largest economies, but it was clear who he was talking about in an address to the plenary session of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings on the island of Bali.
“Lately it feels like the relations among the major economies are becoming more and more like Game of Thrones,” Widodo said in a speech peppered with references to the HBO series about dynasties and kingdoms battling for power.
“Are we so busy fighting with each other and competing against each other that we fail to notice the things which are increasingly threatening, all of us alike, rich and poor, large and small,” he said.
Poorer and populous emerging market countries like his are among the most vulnerable to the fallout from the ongoing U.S.-Sino tariff war, and rising U.S. interest rates that are drawing investors away and driving down currencies.
“All these troubles in the world economy, are enough to make us feel like saying: ‘Winter is coming,'” Widodo said, using a phrase that characters in the popular fantasy series constantly repeat to refer to spectral dangers that could destroy them all.
With rivalry growing in the world economy, Widodo said “the situation could be more critical compared to the global financial crisis 10 years ago.”
The market ructions have now cascaded through to developed markets with Wall Street extending a slide into a sixth session on Thursday amid the trade war fears.
The United States and China have slapped tit-for-tat tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of each other’s goods over the past few months.
The tariffs stem from the Trump administration’s demands that China make sweeping changes to its intellectual property practices, rein in high-technology industrial subsidies, open its markets to more foreign competition and take steps to cut a politically sensitive U.S. goods trade surplus.
Rubbing salt in U.S. wounds, China reported on Friday an unexpected acceleration in export growth in September and a record $34.13 billion trade surplus with the United States.
Mnuchin: China trade talks must include yuan
In an interview with Reuters, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that he told China’s central bank chief that currency issues need to be part of any further U.S.-China trade talks and expressed his concerns about the yuan’s recent weakness.
Mnuchin also said that China needs to identify concrete “action items” to rebalance the two countries’ trade relationship before talks to resolve their disputes can resume.
The U.S. Treasury chief and People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang extensively discussed currency issues on the sidelines of the meetings in Bali.
Mnuchin’s comments on China’s currency come ahead of next week’s scheduled release of a hotly anticipated Treasury report on currency manipulation, the first since a significant weakening of yuan began this spring.
Mnuchin said re-launching trade talks would require China to commit to taking action on structural reforms to its economy.
If the relationship could be rebalanced, he said the U.S.-China total annual trade relationship could grow to $1 trillion from $650 billion currently, with $500 billion of exports from each country.
G-20 members and trade issues
Meanwhile, the chairman of a meeting of finance leaders from the Group of 20 leading industrialized and emerging economies admitted that the trade tensions within the group could only be solved by the countries directly involved.
“The G-20 can play a role in providing the platform for discussions. But the differences that still persist should be resolved by the members that are directly involved in the tensions,” Nicolas Dujovne, Argentina’s Treasury Minister, told a news conference after chairing the G-20 meeting in Bali.
More than 19,000 delegates and other guests, including ministers, central bank heads and some leaders, were attending the IMF-World Bank meetings, and Widodo asked them to “cushion the blows from trade wars, technical disruption and market turmoil.”
“I hope you will each do your part to nudge our various leaders in the right direction,” Widodo said, adding that “confrontation and collision impose a tragic price.”
The IMF’s twice-yearly report on the Asia Pacific region, released Thursday, warned that the market rout seen in emerging economies could worsen if the Federal Reserve and other major central banks tightened monetary policy more quickly than expected.
At Friday’s plenary, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde estimated that the escalation of current trade tensions could reduce global GDP by almost one percent over the next two years.
IMF forecasts of global economic growth for both 2018 and 2019 were cut to 3.7 percent, from 3.9 percent in its July forecast.
“Clearly, we need to de-escalate these disputes,” Lagarde told the plenary session.
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The head of Russia’s space agency said Friday that two astronauts who survived the midair failure of a Russian rocket would fly again and would provisionally travel to the International Space Station (ISS) in spring of next year.
Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, was speaking a day after Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin and American Nick Hague made a dramatic emergency landing in Kazakhstan after the failure of the Soyuz rocket carrying them to the orbital ISS.
Rogozin Friday posted a picture on Twitter of himself next to the two astronauts and said they had now arrived in Moscow. Both men escaped unscathed and feel fine, Roscosmos has said.
The mishap occurred as the first and second stages of a Russian rocket separated shortly after the launch from Kazakhstan’s Soviet-era cosmodrome of Baikonur.
Thursday’s accident was the first serious launch problem experienced by a manned Soyuz space mission since 1983, when a crew narrowly escaped before a launch pad explosion.
The Interfax news agency Friday cited a source familiar with the Russian investigation as saying that a faulty valve had caused the first stage of the Soyuz-FG rocket to malfunction even though the valve had been properly checked before take-off.
NASA has relied on Russian rockets to ferry astronauts to the space station since the United States retired its Space Shuttle program in 2011, although the agency has announced plans for a test flight carrying two astronauts on a SpaceX commercial rocket next April.
Space is an area of cooperation between the United States and Russia at a time of fraught relations. Asked about the mishap, President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House he was “not worried” that American astronauts have to rely on Russia to get into space.
Moscow has suspended all manned space launches, while Rogozin has ordered a state commission to investigate what went wrong. Russia’s Investigative Committee has also opened a criminal investigation into the matter.
Unmanned launches of the Progress spacecraft, which carry food and other supplies to the ISS and use the same rocket system as Soyuz, might also be suspended, Interfax has said.
WATCH: US-Russian Space Crew Makes Emergency Landing
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Worldwide cesarean section use has nearly doubled in two decades and has reached “epidemic” proportions in some countries, doctors warned Friday, highlighting a huge gap in childbirth care between rich and poor mothers.
They said millions of women each year may be putting themselves and their babies at unnecessary risk by undergoing C-sections at rates “that have virtually nothing to do with evidence-based medicine.”
In 2015, the most recent year for which complete data is available, doctors performed 29.7 million C-sections worldwide, or 21 percent of all births. This was up from 16 million in 2000, or 12 percent of all births, according to research published in The Lancet.
It is estimated that the operation, a vital surgical procedure when complications occur during birth, is necessary 10-15 percent of the time.
Varying country rates
But the research found wildly varying country rates of C-section use, often according to economic status: In at least 15 countries, more than 40 percent births are performed using the practice, often on wealthier women in private facilities.
In Brazil, Egypt and Turkey, more than half of all births are done via C-section.
The Dominican Republic has the highest rate of any nation, with 58.1 percent of all babies delivered using the procedure.
But in close to a quarter of nations surveyed, C-section use is significantly lower than average.
Reasons to opt for surgery
Authors pointed out that while the procedure is generally overused in many middle- and high-income settings, women in low-income situations often lack necessary access to what can be a life-saving procedure.
“We would not expect such differences between countries, between women by socioeconomic status or between provinces/states within countries based on obstetric need,” Ties Boerma, professor of public health at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, and a lead author on the study, told AFP.
Jane Sandall, professor of social science and women’s health at King’s College London and a study author, told AFP that there were a variety of reasons women were increasingly opting for surgery.
These include “a lack of midwives to prevent and detect problems, loss of medical skills to confidently and competently attend a vaginal delivery, as well as medico-legal issues.”
Doctors are often tempted to organize C-sections to ease the flow of patients through a maternity clinic, and medical professionals are generally less vulnerable to legal action if they choose an operation over a natural birth.
Sandall also said there were often “financial incentives for both doctor and hospital” to perform the procedure.
The study warned that in many settings young doctors were becoming “experts” in C-section while losing confidence in their abilities when it comes to natural birth.
Income a factor
It also identified an emerging gap between wealthy and poorer regions within the same country. In China, C-section rates diverged from 4 percent to 62 percent; in India the range was 7-49 percent.
While the U.S. saw more than a quarter of all births performed by C-section, some states used the procedure more than twice as often as others.
“It is clear that poor countries have low C-section use because access to services is a problem,” Sandall said. “In many of those countries, however, richer women who live in urban areas, have access to private facilities have much higher C-section use.”
Risks to mother, child
C-sections may be marketed by clinics as the “easy” way to give birth, but they are not without risks.
Maternal death and disability rates are higher after C-section than vaginal birth. The procedure scars the womb, which can lead to bleeding, ectopic pregnancies (where the embryo is stuck in the ovaries), as well as still- and premature future births.
The authors suggested better education, more midwifery-led care and improved labor planning as ways of ensuring C-sections are only performed when medically necessary, as well as ensuring women properly understand the risks involved with the procedure.
“C-section is a type of major surgery, which carries risks that require careful consideration,” Sandall said.
In a comment accompanying the study, Gerard Visser of the University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, called the rise in C-sections “alarming.”
“The medical profession on its own cannot reverse this trend,” he said. “Joint actions are urgently needed to stop unnecessary C-sections and enable women and families to be confident of receiving the most appropriate care for their circumstances.”
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A U.S. astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut made an emergency return to earth Thursday shortly after launching on what was supposed to be a mission to the International Space Station. Rescuers reached American Nick Hague and Russian Alexei Ovchinin after their emergency landing in Kazakhstan. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb recently sat down with Hague to talk about his future in space, a future now up in the air after his unexpected fall to Earth.
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Facebook announced Thursday that it had deleted over 800 mostly U.S.-based pages and accounts that were posting politically oriented spam and engaging in “inauthentic behavior.”
The social media giant declined a request from VOA News to name the 559 pages and 251 accounts. Nation in Distress, a pro-President Donald Trump page identified by The Washington Post as being among the banned, had over 3 million followers.
Facebook said that many of the pages and accounts had posted political clickbait across multiple fake accounts to drive users to their websites, where they were often targeted with ads.
“Many used the same techniques to make their content appear more popular on Facebook than it really was,” Facebook said on its news blog. “Others were ad farms using Facebook to mislead people into thinking that they were forums for legitimate political debate.”
Facebook said “the ‘news’ stories or opinions these accounts and pages share are often indistinguishable from legitimate political debate,” noting the proximity of the 2018 midterm elections.
In the past, Facebook has purged dozens of pages spreading fake news originating from Iran and Russia, countries that have antagonistic relations with the U.S. The company says most of the pages and accounts banned this time were from the U.S.
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Elon Musk replied with a tweet saying “This is incorrect” after the Financial
Times reported that outgoing Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. Chief Executive James Murdoch was the lead candidate to replace him as Tesla Inc. chairman.
Tesla has until Nov. 13 to appoint an independent chairman of the board, part of settlements reached last month between Tesla, Musk and U.S. regulators after Musk tweeted in August that he had secured funding to take the electric car maker private.
The SEC settlement capped months of debate and some investor calls for stronger oversight of Musk, whose recent erratic public behavior raised concerns about his ability to steer the money-losing company through a rocky phase of growth.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which said Musk’s tweeted statements about going private were fraudulent, allowed the billionaire to retain his role as CEO while requiring he give up his chairmanship.
Musk had said he was considering taking Tesla private at a price of $420 a share, a number that is slang for marijuana. He tweeted the three-word denial of the Financial Times story on Wednesday at 4:20 pm PDT (2320 GMT), about six hours after the newspaper’s post.
In a vote of confidence for Musk, shareholder T. Rowe Price Group Inc. said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday that it had raised its stake to 10.2 percent at the end of September from just under 7 percent in June.
The Financial Times cited two people briefed on discussions saying Murdoch was the lead candidate for the job. Murdoch, already an independent director of Tesla, has signaled he wants the job, the report said.
The son of Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch, he joined Tesla’s board last year after years of work with media companies. He has no experience in manufacturing and has never led a company that makes cars or electric vehicles.
Murdoch could not immediately be reached for comment. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. Twenty-First Century Fox declined to comment.
Board roles
Musk is the public face of Tesla, and any chairman would have to contend with his powerful personality. Thanks to his vision and audacious showmanship, Tesla’s valuation has at times eclipsed that of established U.S. automakers with billions in revenues, and the company has garnered legions of fans, despite repeated production issues.
“The question when it comes to James Murdoch is, ‘Is he the guy who’ll be able to establish that level of authority with Elon Musk?’ ” asked Abby Adlerman, CEO of Boardspan, a corporate governance consulting company.
Murdoch, who at 45 is a near contemporary of 47-year-old Musk, recently navigated a takeover battle between Fox and Comcast Corp. to buy European pay-TV company Sky, which he also chaired.
His record in ensuring Sky’s independent shareholders were represented throughout was exemplary, media analyst Alice Enders said.
“His experience is very recent and very relevant,” she said.
Investor concerns that Tesla’s board was too closely tied to Musk led to the company’s addition of two independent directors, including Murdoch, in July 2017.
Earlier this year, leading U.S. proxy advisers Glass Lewis & Co. and Institutional Shareholder Services and union-affiliated investment adviser CtW Investment Group had recommended investors cast votes “against” the re-election of Murdoch as a Tesla director at the company’s annual meeting held on June 5.
While CtW cited a lack of relevant experience and a “troubled history as an executive and director,” both proxy firms warned that Murdoch already served on too many boards.
Murdoch currently serves on the boards of Twenty-First Century Fox and News Corp. He stepped down from Sky Plc on Tuesday following the completion of Comcast’s takeover of the broadcaster.
He was appointed chief executive of Sky, founded by his father, in 2003, becoming the youngest CEO of a FTSE 100 company.
“Under his leadership, Sky went down the technology route,” Enders said. “It’s no accident he oversaw that strategy, which was really distinct from the strategy other pay-TV companies followed, and in my view was his most valuable contribution.”
Murdoch replaced his father as chairman of Sky in 2007, but was forced out in 2012 after being embroiled in Britain’s phone-hacking scandal. He returned to Sky’s board in 2016 after rebuilding his career at Fox.
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Parties to a new global treaty to combat the illicit sale of tobacco products have taken the first steps toward cracking down on this multi-billion dollar trade. At a three-day meeting at the headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva they have outlined a plan to shut down the lucrative black market trade in tobacco.
A global tobacco treaty (Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products) entered into force on September 25, with 48 countries joining the new protocol, which is part of the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC). Two-thirds of the parties have enacted or strengthened national legislation aimed at tackling illicit trade in tobacco products.
Parties attending the meeting have set up a working group to create a monitoring system to track and trace the movement of tobacco products. They hope this global information sharing system will be up and running by 2023.
Head of the FCTC Secretariat, Vera da Costa e Silva, says illicit trade accounts for one in 10 cigarettes consumed. She says these cigarettes are low-priced and more affordable for young people and vulnerable populations. She says this results in increased consumption of the toxic product by these groups.
She told VOA the black market in tobacco thrives in both rich and poor countries, but it is a much bigger problem in developing countries.
“In the streets of developing countries, you can see all over the world sales of illicit trade of tobacco products. They are openly in their markets…. When it comes to the distribution, this is linked to street sales, to bootlegging as well through borders and even to sales to and by minors. That is a real problem of illicit trade in tobacco products,” she said.
Da Costa e Silva said this flourishing illegal trade undermines tobacco control policies and public health. She said it also fuels organized crime and increases tobacco profits through tax evasion, resulting in substantial losses in governments’ revenues.
She said studies show governments lose $31 billion in taxes annually from the illegal trafficking in tobacco products.
The World Health Organization reports seven million people die prematurely every year from tobacco-related causes.
Health officials say the rate of new Ebola cases has more than doubled since September after rebel violence in northeastern Congo caused response efforts to be briefly suspended.
In a statement on Thursday, the International Rescue Committee says it is “alarmed” that there were 33 new cases between October 1 and Tuesday, versus 41 cases during all of September.
Officials say most of the new cases have been in Beni, where experts had to suspend Ebola containment efforts for days after a deadly rebel attack.
Earlier this week, the World Health Organization noted that all of the health workers who have caught Ebola in this epidemic have been infected outside of hospitals or clinics, meaning that the virus is spreading in the community.
From a young age, Phatwa Senene knew he wanted to be an inventor.
He got his start at age 11, he said, when he attached a DC motor to a fan. He then attached the fan to a drill and proceeded to drill holes into his bedroom wall. His invention worked, he said: The fan blew away the dust from the drilling.
“That was my first invention that I can recall,” he said, laughing. “My mom didn’t like it at all.”
He nearly hit a figurative wall years later, when he tried to go to university, but found he couldn’t afford it. His family was poor, he said, and he grew up in a Johannesburg township.
But the now-33-year-old plowed ahead, coming up with innovative inventions, like a data-collecting, 3D-printed solar-powered streetlamp, that have caught the attention of South African municipalities and companies.
Two of his new streetlamps, which are capable of tracking data like noise levels and air quality, are being piloted in inner city Johannesburg.
Toybox for inventors
It’s that creativity and innovation that have also caught the attention of African technology innovators, who are hoping to turn this unique idea into profit. Senene is a member of a new Johannesburg tech innovation hub, called Toybox, that gives inventors, artists and tinkerers room to work, a community to work with, and business support to get their inventions off the drawing board and into the real world.
Co-founder Arlene Mulder, who previously started WeThinkCode, an institution that teaches young South Africans about coding and software engineering, says Africa is often overlooked as a source for ideas and invention. She wants to change that, by supporting local inventors and giving them room to grow.
“We’ve been seeing, over the last couple of years, incredibly talented inventors coming up with incredible inventions, but they are struggling to bring these inventions to life,” she tells VOA. “So we are creating this ecosystem and platform for them to come together, and we provide access to the global world.”
In exchange for its services, the hub gets a portion of the revenue the inventors end up making. There are similar places operating elsewhere in South Africa as well as Kenya and Rwanda.
Welcome support
Senene says he appreciates the support. It was hard to get ahead flying solo.
“You can be an inventor all day, but you still need to eat, you need to run a business,” he said. “So, as an inventor, I had to go through the process where you learn about business. And all of that for me was self-taught. There’s no one in my family who would set a path for me, there was no one who guided me, so, trial and error, I learned the hard way.”
Toybox co-Founder Kanina Foss says Africa is an ideal springboard for innovation, with its rich artistic talent and traditions.
“Some of the cool stuff our fellows are doing include leveraging the intersections between technologies and the creative disciplines, so that we can use artists to really push the barriers on what tech can do,” she said.
Senene, the inventor, says his inspiration comes from some unexpected places. One of his recent innovations is a “tombstone tracker,” a tool meant to find stolen grave markers, which has been a problem in South Africa.
WATCH: South African Invents Tracker for Stolen Tombstones
“What inspires me is my environment,” he said. “So many of my devices have been inspired by the places that I’ve lived in, especially the problems. So, I’m very sensitive to negativity, to horrible things, and that allows me to identify them, and I have an ability to try to come up with a solution.”
If he finds a solution, places like Toybox will be ready to help him develop and market the idea.
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The next big advance in technology could well come from Africa. At least, that is the hope of several new technology and innovation incubators on the continent. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Johannesburg on Toybox, an interdisciplinary hub founded by two female engineers.
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A U.S. astronaut and Russian cosmonaut are safe following an emergency return to Earth minutes after launching on what was supposed to be a mission to the International Space Station.
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said a booster on the Soyuz spacecraft failed after it took off Thursday from the Soviet-era cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
“At that point, per the standard procedure, an abort was initiated,” International Space Station Operations Integration Manager Kenny Todd told reporters.
“My heart was beating hard,” astronaut Reid Weisman said of the moment he heard the booster had malfunctioned during his colleagues’ launch.
It was the latest in a string of recent failures for the Russian space program, which also takes American astronauts to the station.
Russian officials said they are investigating the incident, adding that all manned space flight missions would be suspended until investigators figure out what went wrong.
Officials said U.S. astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos’ Alexei Ovchinin experienced 6 to 7 times Earth’s gravity, followed by a brief moment of weightlessness, as they separated from the booster before falling to Earth.
Rescuers reached the crew after they landed in Kazakhstan, and both were in good condition. They are now reunited with their families.
Thursday was supposed to be Hague’s first time in space.
Hague, who is an Air Force colonel, was the first member of his class to be assigned to a mission. Todd said there was “no doubt” Hague would be selected for another mission, but it was “yet to be determined” when that would occur.
In an interview with VOA prior to the launch, Hague said he was excited and ready, but also nervous.
“Sitting on top of a rocket for the first time and being shot into space, you know, how can you not be nervous?” he said.
Hague spent the last five years preparing for his mission. When he gets the chance, he will serve as a flight engineer on the International Space Station, doing everything from maintenance of the aircraft to scientific research to study the effects of weightlessness.
The International Space Station is the largest space collaboration ever. Fifteen countries built and operate the live-in satellite, an “unprecedented” feat, according to John Logsdon, a professor emeritus at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute.
“One of the real payoffs with benefits is to demonstrate peaceful collaboration, not only between allies, but between the United States and Russia, even in spite of all the current political tensions between the two countries,” Logsdon said.
Hague told VOA he enjoys working with space explorers from all over the country and world.
Typically, five to seven astronauts man the ISS at one time. Only about 250 people have ever lived on the International Space Station, which celebrates its 20th year in orbit next month.
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NASA says that two astronauts from the U.S. and Russia are in good condition after an emergency landing following booster rocket failure minutes after the launch.
U.S. astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos’ Alexei Ovchinin lifted off as scheduled at 2:40 p.m. (0840 GMT; 4:40 a.m. EDT) Thursday from the Russia-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan atop a Soyuz booster rocket.
They were to dock at the orbiting outpost six hours later, but the booster suffered a failure minutes after the launch.
The two made an emergency landing in Kazakhstan at an unspecified time. Search and rescue crews scrambled to reach the expected landing site.
It’s the first space mission for Hague, who joined NASA’s astronaut corps in 2013. Ovchinin spent six months on the station in 2016.
Relations between Moscow and Washington have sunk to post-Cold War lows over the crisis in Ukraine, the war in Syria and allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential vote, but Russia and the U.S. have maintained cooperation in space.
An estimated 44 million people 65 years and older worldwide have Alzheimer’s, the most common cause of dementia. Alzheimer’s is a degenerative brain disorder that causes memory loss, and impairs thinking, judgment and problem solving. So far, scientists have not found a drug that can stop the disease. But a research program in the United States is trying to prevent it by targeting the earliest changes in the brain while memory and thinking skills are still intact. VOA’s Deborah Block has more.
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U.S. President Donald Trump said that Wednesday’s stock market sell-off was in fact a long-awaited “correction,” and that the Federal Reserve, which has been raising U.S. interest rates, had gone “crazy.”
Trump’s use of the word correction to describe the sell-off could be significant. A stock market correction is defined as a decline of at least 10 percent from the high point of the past 52 weeks, suggesting that major U.S. indices have further to fall.
Despite Wednesday’s sell-off, the S&P 500 would still need to more than double its losses. It has fallen nearly 5 percent from its all-time closing high on Sept. 20. The Nasdaq has fallen 8.5 percent from its record closing high on Aug. 29. An additional 1.5-percentage-point fall would confirm a correction for that index.
Stocks have sold off in recent days on worries about higher borrowing costs. A spike in Treasury yields and solid U.S. economic data have sparked concerns that the Federal Reserve may pick up the pace of its interest rate hikes.
“Actually it’s a correction that we’ve been waiting for a long time, but I really disagree with what the Fed is doing,” Trump told reporters before a political rally in Pennsylvania.
The U.S. stock market sell-off on Wednesday saw the S&P 50 and the Dow marking their biggest daily declines since Feb. 8, and technology stocks were at the center of the carnage. Steve Massocca, senior vice president at Wedbush Securities in San Francisco, said he thought the downturn would b short-lived.
“There’s a greater than 50-50 chance there’s a rebound, if not tomorrow, then the day after, given the severity of the move,” he said.
But some investors and analysts expressed concern about the market’s direction.
“It’s probably the beginning of the correction,” said Oliver Pursche, vice chairman and chief market strategist at Bruderman Asset Management in New York.
‘Fed is making a mistake’
The Fed last raised interest rates in September and left intact its plans to steadily tighten monetary policy, as it forecast that the U.S. economy would enjoy at least three more years of economic growth.
But those actions have drawn scorn from Trump, who has accused the Fed of moving too fast in raising rates when inflation is minimal and government data points to a strong economy.
“I think … the Fed is making a mistake. They’re so tight. I think the Fed has gone crazy,” Trump said.
U.S. presidents have rarely criticized the Fed in recent decades because its independence has been seen as important for economic stability. Trump has departed from that practice and has said he would not shy from future criticism should the Fed keep lifting rates.
The Federal Reserve is mandated by Congress to aim for low inflation and low unemployment. U.S. consumer price inflation is currently above 2 percent annually and the unemployment rate is the lowest in about 40 years.
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A characteristic twinkle in his eye, Ronald Reagan waves to a crowd from aboard a rail car in a hologram revealed Wednesday at the late president’s namesake library in Southern California.
“We think we made a good beginning, but you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” the digital resurrection of the nation’s 40th president says in his steady voice as a flurry of balloons falls in front of him.
Reagan, who died in 2004 at age 93, was speaking about the nation’s future during a 1984 campaign stop but easily could have been referencing the technology that brought him back to life in 2018. The audio used is edited from his real remarks.
’A stunning experience’
“We wanted to make President Reagan as lifelike as possible,” said John Heubusch, executive director of the Reagan Foundation. “It’s a stunning experience.”
In two other holograms, Reagan appears in a suit and tie inside the Oval Office and in horseback riding pants, carrying a lasso alongside his dog, Victory, at his beloved ranch. All three holograms will be on display to visitors of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, west of Los Angeles, starting Thursday.
They will be shown in a specially designed room that will be the first stop for guests. Seats are set up in front of a stage, and a curtain opens up to thunderous applause at Reagan’s campaign stop more than three decades ago.
How it was done
The computer-generated imagery for the holograms was created starting with a silicone cast of Reagan’s head that was photographed from various angles with 300 cameras. His head was then digitally “placed” on the body of an actor portraying the president with full costumes and backdrops for the three scenarios.
Reagan’s face comes to life via specific movements of the mouth, nose, eyes, cheeks and hairline, all manipulated by computers.
The library worked with the same special-effects technicians who helped bring singers like Michael Jackson, Billie Holiday and Roy Orbison back to life on stage.
The Hollywood firm Hologram USA helped create the holograms and the stage on which they’re projected.
A lover of technology
As a radio host, television star and movie actor, Reagan understood and appreciated new technologies, company senior vice president David Nussbaum said.
“He always thought many steps ahead,” he said. “If he was looking down right now on this project, I think he would give us his seal of approval. I think he would totally get this and support it.”
Seeing her former boss “almost in the flesh” was “a little eerie, but at the same time, very comforting,” said Joanne Drake, who served as Reagan’s chief of staff after the Republican left office following his two terms from 1981 to 1989.
“It’s fun to think that he’s standing in front of us,” said Drake, who’s now chief administration officer for the foundation. “Intellectually, you know it’s not him standing there, but you see his facial movements and his arm movements and his body and that twinkle in his eye and that little grin that he always got, and it makes you remember really what he brought to the office.”
Drake said future plans could include bringing the holograms on the road.
“I do think we’re going to see Ronald Reagan back in Washington, D.C.,” she said.
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The U.S. Air Force on Wednesday said that it had awarded a total of $2.3 billion in contracts to develop rocket launch systems for national security missions.
The awards go to Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin; United Launch Services, part of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) joint venture between Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Corp; and Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems.
The three contracts are part of a Department of Defense initiative to assure constant military access to space and curb reliance on foreign-made rocket engines, like ULA’s flagship Atlas V rocket that uses Russian-made RD-180 boosters. The contracts are to develop rockets and carry defense payloads into space.
Centennial, Colorado-based United Launch Services received $967 million to develop its Vulcan rocket; Kent, Washington-based Blue Origin was awarded $500 million to build its New Glenn booster, and Northrop Grumman of Arizona received $791.6 million for its OmegA rocket.
Blue Origin’s and Northrop’s prototype vehicles for military launches are expected to be ready to fly by late 2024 and ULA’s Vulcan rocket development should be completed by March 2025.
Blue Origin said in a statement following Wednesday’s announcement that it will build a launch site at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, although it did not say what rockets would launch from the site. ULA announced in September that its Vulcan rocket will be powered by Blue’s BE-4 liquid rocket engines.
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Mat Beren and his friends used to drive by the vast greenhouses of southern British Columbia and joke about how much weed they could grow there.
Years later, it’s no joke. The tomato and pepper plants that once filled some of those greenhouses have been replaced with a new cash crop: marijuana. Beren and other formerly illicit growers are helping cultivate it. The buyers no longer are unlawful dealers or dubious medical dispensaries; it’s the Canadian government.
On Oct. 17, Canada becomes the second and largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace. Uruguay launched legal sales last year, after several years of planning.
It’s a profound social shift promised by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and fueled by a desire to bring the black market into a regulated, taxed system after nearly a century of prohibition.
It also stands in contrast to the United States, where the federal government outlaws marijuana while most states allow medical or recreational use for people 21 and older. Canada’s national approach has allowed for unfettered industry banking, inter-province shipments of cannabis, online ordering, postal delivery and billions of dollars in investment; national prohibition in the U.S. has stifled greater industry expansion there.
Hannah Hetzer, who tracks international marijuana policy for the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, called Canada’s move “extremely significant,” given that about 25 countries have already legalized the medical use of marijuana or decriminalized possession of small amounts of pot. A few, including Mexico, have expressed an interest in regulating recreational use.
“It’s going to change the global debate on drug policy,” she said. “There’s no other country immediately considering legalizing the nonmedical use of cannabis, but I think Canada will provide almost the permission for other countries to move forward.”
At least 109 legal pot shops are expected to open across the nation of 37 million people next Wednesday, with many more to come, according to an Associated Press survey of the provinces. For now, they’ll offer dried flower, capsules, tinctures and seeds, with sales of marijuana-infused foods and concentrates expected to begin next year.
Overseeing distribution
The provinces are tasked with overseeing marijuana distribution. For some, including British Columbia and Alberta, that means buying cannabis from licensed producers, storing it in warehouses and then shipping it to retail shops and online customers. Others, like Newfoundland, are having growers ship directly to stores or through the mail.
Federal taxes will total $1 per gram or 10 percent, whichever is more. The feds will keep one-fourth of that and return the rest to the provinces, which can add their own markups. Consumers also will pay local sales taxes.
Some provinces have chosen to operate their own stores, like state-run liquor stores in the U.S., while others have OK’d private outlets. Most are letting residents grow up to four plants at home.
Canada’s most populous province, Ontario, won’t have any stores open until next April, after the new conservative government scrapped a plan for state-owned stores in favor of privately run shops. Until then, the only legal option for Ontario residents will be mail delivery — a prospect that didn’t sit well with longtime pot fan Ryan Bose, 48, a Lyft driver.
“Potheads are notoriously very impatient. When they want their weed, they want their weed,” he said after buying a half-ounce at an illicit medical marijuana dispensary in Toronto. “Waiting one or two three days for it by mail, I’m not sure how many will want to do that.”
British Columbia, home of the “B.C. Bud” long cherished by American pot connoisseurs, has had a prevalent marijuana culture since the 1970s, after U.S. draft-dodgers from the Vietnam War settled on Vancouver Island and in the province’s southeastern mountains. But a change in government last year slowed cannabis distribution plans there, too, and it will have just one store ready next Wednesday: a state-run shop in Kamloops, a few hours’ drive northeast of Vancouver. By contrast, Alberta expects to open 17 next week and 250 within a year.
Unlawful operations
No immediate crackdown is expected for the dozens of illicit-but-tolerated medical marijuana dispensaries operating in British Columbia, though officials eventually plan to close any without a license. Many are expected to apply for private retail licenses, and some have sued, saying they have a right to remain open.
British Columbia’s ministry of public safety is forming a team of 44 inspectors to root out unlawful operations, seize product and issue fines. They’ll have responsibility for a province of 4.7 million people and an area twice as large as California, where the black market still dwarfs the legal market that arrived in January.
Chris Clay, a longtime Canadian medical marijuana activist, runs Warmland Centre dispensary in an old shopping mall in Mill Bay, on Vancouver Island. He is closing the store Monday until he gets a license; he feared continuing to operate post-legalization would jeopardize his chances. Some of his eight staff members will likely have to file for unemployment benefits in the meantime.
“That will be frustrating, but overall I’m thrilled,” Clay said. “I’ve been waiting decades for this.”
Licensed growers
The federal government has licensed 120 growers, some of them enormous. Canopy Growth, which recently received an investment of $4 billion from Constellation Brands, whose holdings include Corona beer, Robert Mondavi wines and Black Velvet whiskey, is approved for 5.6 million square feet (520,000 square meters) of production space across Canada. Its two biggest greenhouses are near the U.S. border in British Columbia.
Beren, a 23-year cannabis grower, is a Canopy consultant.
“We used to joke around all the time when we’d go to Vancouver and drive by the big greenhouses on the highway,” he said. “Like, ‘Oh man, someday. It’d be so awesome if we could grow cannabis in one of these greenhouses.’ We drive by now, and we’re like, ‘Oh, we’re here.”‘
Next to Canopy’s greenhouse in Delta is another huge facility, Pure Sunfarms, a joint venture between a longtime tomato grower, Village Farms International, and a licensed medical marijuana producer, Emerald Health Therapeutics. Workers pulled out the remaining tomato plants last winter and got to work renovating the greenhouse as a marijuana farm, installing equipment that includes lights and accordion-shaped charcoal vents to control the plant’s odor. By 2020, the venture expects to move more than 165,000 pounds (75,000 kg) of bud per year.
Some longtime illegal growers who operate on a much smaller scale worry they won’t get licensed or will get steamrolled by much larger producers. Provinces can issue “micro-producer” licenses. But in British Columbia, where small-time pot growers helped sustain rural economies as the mining and forestry industries cratered, the application period hasn’t opened yet.
Sarah Campbell of the Craft Cannabis Association of BC said many small operators envision a day when they can host visitors who can tour their operations and sample the product, as wineries do.
Officials say they intend to accommodate craft growers but first need to ensure there is enough cannabis to meet demand when legalization arrives. Hiccups are inevitable, they say, and tweaks will be needed.
“Leaving it to each province to decide what’s best for their communities and their citizens is something that’s good,” said Gene Makowsky, the Saskatchewan minister who oversees the province’s Liquor and Gaming Authority. “We’ll be able to see if each law is successful or where we can do better in certain areas.”
British Columbia safety minister Mike Farnworth said he learned two primary lessons by visiting Oregon and Washington, U.S. states with recreational marijuana. One was not to look at the industry as an immediate cash cow, as it will take time to displace the black market. The other was to start with relatively strict regulations and then loosen them as needed, because it’s much harder to tighten them after the fact.
Legalization will be a process more than a date, Farnworth said.
“Oct. 17th is actually not going to look much different than it does today,” he said.
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U.S. stocks posted their worst loss since February on Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrial average finishing the day down more than 800 points.
The losses were widespread as bond yields remained high after steep increases last week. Companies that have been the biggest winners on the market the last few years, including technology companies and retailers, suffered steep declines.
The Dow gave up nearly 828 points, or 3.15 percent, to 25,600. The Nasdaq composite, which has a high concentration of technology stocks, tumbled 316 points, or 4.1 percent, to 7,422.
The S&P 500 index sank 95 points, or 3.3 percent, to 2,786, its fifth straight drop. That hasn’t happened since right before the 2016 presidential election. Every one of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished down for the day.
Microsoft dropped 5.4 percent to $106.16. Amazon skidded 6.2 percent to $1,755.25. Industrial and internet companies also fell hard. Boeing lost 4.7 percent to $367.47 and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, gave up 5 percent to $1,081.22.
After a long stretch of relative calm, the stock market has suffered sharp losses over the last week as bond yields surged.
Squeezed margins
Gina Martin Adams, the chief equity strategist for Bloomberg Intelligence, said investors are concerned about the big increase in yields, which makes it more expensive to borrow money. She said they also fear that company profit margins will be squeezed by rising costs, including the price of oil.
Paint and coatings maker PPG gave a weak third-quarter forecast Monday, while earlier, Pepsi and Conagra’s quarterly reports reflected increased expenses.
“Both companies highlighted rising costs, not only input costs but increasing operating expenses [and] marketing expenses,” she said.
Insurance companies dropped as Hurricane Michael continued to gather strength and came ashore in Florida bringing winds of up to 155 mph. Berkshire Hathaway dipped 4.8 percent to $213.10 and reinsurer Everest Re slid 5.1 percent to $217.73.
Luxury retailers tumbled. Tiffany plunged 10.2 percent to $110.38 and Ralph Lauren fell 8.4 percent to $116.96.
The biggest driver for the market over the last week has been interest rates, which began spurting higher following several encouraging reports on the economy. Higher rates can slow economic growth, erode corporate profits and make investors less willing to pay high prices for stocks.
The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 3.22 percent from 3.20 percent late Tuesday after earlier touching 3.24 percent. It was at just 3.05 percent early last week.
Technology and internet-based companies are known for their high profit margins, and many have reported explosive growth in recent years, with corresponding gains in their stock prices. Adams, of Bloomberg Intelligence, said investors have concerns about their future profitability, too.
That’s helped make technology stocks more volatile in the last few months.
“As stocks go up, tech goes up more than the stock market. As stocks go down, tech goes down more than the stock market,” she said.
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Australia is rejecting the latest U.N. report on climate change, insisting coal remains critical to energy security and lowering household power bills.
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in its report released Monday that global greenhouse gas emissions must reach zero by the middle of the century to stop global warming exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The authors warned that if warming was allowed to reach two degrees, the world would be on course toward uncontrollable temperatures.
They made special mention of coal, insisting that its use for power generation would have to fall to between zero and two percent of current usage.
The report has received a lukewarm response by Australia’s center-right government. It has said it has no intention of scaling back fossil fuel production because without coal, household power bills would soar.
Canberra also insists it is on target to meet its commitments under the Paris agreement, which attempts to unite every nation under a single accord to tackle climate change for the first time ever.
Australia earns billions of dollars exporting coal to China and other parts of Asia, while it generates more than 60 percent of domestic electricity.
Australia’s Environment Minister Melissa Price believes the IPCC report exaggerates the threat posed by fossil fuel.
“Coal does form a very important part of the Australian energy mixer and we make no apology for the fact that our focus at the moment is on getting electricity prices down,” Price said. “Every year, there is new technology with respect to coal and what its contribution is to emissions. So, you know, to say that it has got to be phased out by 2050 is drawing a very long bow.”
Australia has some of the world’s highest per capita rates of greenhouse gas pollution. A recent government report showed a failure to reduce levels of greenhouse gas pollution. The survey said that between January and March this year, Australia had its most elevated levels of carbon pollution since 2011.
Conservationists argue Australia is doing too little to protect itself from the predicted ravages of a shifting climate.
Australia is the world’s driest inhabited continent. Scientists warn that droughts, floods, heat waves, brush fires and storms will become more intense as temperatures rise, with potentially disastrous consequences for human health and the environment, including the Great Barrier Reef.
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