Veterinarian Dr. Karin Lourens has become known as Africa’s “pangolin doctor” for leading medical efforts to help the scaly anteaters rescued from the illegal wildlife trade to recover. Her pioneering tube-feeding and blood testing is helping to improve her endangered patients’ survival rate. Marize de Klerk reports for VOA from Johannesburg.
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Month: May 2019
People using e-cigarettes to quit smoking are about 95% more likely to report success than those trying to quit without help from any stop-smoking aids according to the results of a large study in England.
The research, funded by the charity Cancer Research UK and published in the journal Addiction on Thursday, analyzed success rates of several common stop-smoking methods – including e-cigarettes, nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) patches and gum, and Pfizer’s varenicline, sold as Champix in the UK.
It also adjusted for a wide range of factors that might influence success rates for quitting – such as age, social level, degree of cigarette addiction, previous attempts to quit, and whether quitting was gradual or abrupt.
Latest World Health Organization data show that smoking and other tobacco use kills more than 7 million people a year globally. Of the 1.1 billion people worldwide who smoke, around 80 percent live in poor or middle-income countries.
E-cigarettes have no tobacco, but contain nicotine-laced liquids that the user inhales in a vapor. Many big tobacco companies, including British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands and Japan Tobacco, sell e-cigarettes.
This study involved almost 19,000 people in England who had tried to quit smoking in the preceding 12 months, collected over a 12-year period from 2006 to 2018. Successful quitters were defined as those who said they were still not smoking.
As well as the 95% increased success rate for e-cigarettes, the study found that people prescribed Champix were around 82% more likely to have succeeded in stopping smoking than those who tried to quit without any aids.
“Our study adds to growing evidence that use of e-cigarettes can help smokers to quit,” said Sarah Jackson, a professor at University College London who co-led the study.
Using e-cigarettes, or ‘vaping,’ is considered by many experts to be an effective way for smokers to give up tobacco, but some in the scientific community are skeptical of their public health benefits, fearing they might normalize the idea of smoking and lead young people into the habit.
Smokers who were prescribed NRT by a medical professional were 34% more likely to quit successfully, the study found. But those buying NRT from shops were no more likely to succeed that those trying to quit without any help at all.
Experts said the results were robust and important.
Peter Hajek, director of the tobacco dependence research unit at Britain’s Queen Mary University of London, said the study yielded two key findings about e-cigarettes:
“They help smokers quit at least as much as stop-smoking medications, and they are used by many more smokers. This means they generate many more quitters and do this at no cost to the NHS (National Health Service),” he said in an emailed comment.
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In a potential challenge to U.S.-led efforts to build consensus on the Boeing Co 737 MAX flying again, Canada and Europe said on Wednesday they would bring back the grounded aircraft on their own terms if their specific concerns are not addressed.
Global regulators will meet in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thursday where the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration hopes to reach an international consensus on how to move forward with the MAX, U.S. officials told Reuters.
The plane was grounded worldwide in March following a fatal Ethiopian Airlines crash just months after a similar Lion Air disaster in Indonesia which together killed 346 people.
Global airlines that had rushed to buy the fuel-efficient, longer-range aircraft have since canceled flights and scrambled to cover routes that were previously flown by the MAX.
“From our point of view, if we all work together and we all reach the same aim, fine. If we don’t, we’ll choose our own time to decide when the planes are safe to fly again,” Canadian Transport Minister Marc Garneau told Reuters in an interview.
“The number one focus for us is that we in Canada must be satisfied. It doesn’t matter what others do. So if we are not perfectly synchronized with certain other countries that’s how it going to be,” Garneau said.
Regulators are expected to discuss Boeing’s proposed software fix and new pilot training that are both key to re-starting flights. Boeing has not yet formally submitted its proposals to the FAA.
A spokesman for the European Aviation Safety Agency said on Wednesday that it would complete an additional independent design review of the plane once the FAA approves Boeing’s proposed changes and establishes “adequate training of Boeing MAX flight crews.”
Foreign regulators have already signaled disagreements over measures to end the grounding, with Garneau calling in April for pilots to receive simulator training for the MAX, rather than computer courses, going a step beyond FAA-backed proposals.
Acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell told Congress last week the FAA is working closely with other civil aviation authorities “to address specific concerns related to the 737 MAX.”
United Airlines Chief Executive Oscar Munoz said on Wednesday that FAA approval is only the first step, with public and employee confidence key to deciding when to fly its 14 MAX jets again.
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British and Japanese mobile phone companies said Wednesday they’re putting on hold plans to sell new devices from Huawei, in the latest fallout from U.S. tech restrictions aimed at the Chinese company.
Britain’s EE and Vodafone and Japan’s KDDI and Y! Mobile said they are pausing the launch of Huawei smartphones, including some that can be used on next generation mobile networks, amid uncertainty about devices from the world’s No. 2 smartphone maker.
The U.S. government last week restricted technology sales to Chinese telecom gear suppliers because of alleged security risks, though telecom carriers got a 90-day grace period to let them find other suppliers. The sales ban is part of a broader trade war between Washington and Beijing.
British mobile chip designer Arm said separately it was complying with the U.S. rules, after the BBC reported it was suspending business with Huawei — a move that could hobble the Chinese tech company’s ability to produce chips for new devices.
Vodafone said in a statement that it’s “pausing pre-orders” for the Mate 20X, Huawei’s first phone for 5G networks, as “a temporary measure while uncertainty exists regarding new Huawei 5G devices.”
EE CEO Marc Allera said sales would not resume until it gets “the information and confidence and the long-term security” that customers will be supported over the device’s lifetime. The company was also set to sell the Mate 20X followed by Huawei’s Mate X folding handset.
EE said it’s working with Huawei and Google, which makes the Android mobile operating systems to make sure it “can carry out the right level of testing and quality assurance.”
The Trump administration’s order last week cuts Huawei’s access to American chips and Google, which makes the Android operating system and services for its smartphones.
Y! Mobile, owned by Japanese technology company Softbank, said sales of the Huawei P30 lite, set for May 24, have been delayed, and advance orders were canceled.
SoftBank spokesman Hiroyuki Mizukami said the company wants its “customers to feel safe using our products.”
KDDI also indefinitely delayed its sales, initially set for late May.
It’s unclear when, or if, the companies will lift the sales freezes.
British carriers plan this year to roll out 5G services while Japan will follow in 2020. Fifth generation mobile networks will enable superfast downloads and pave the way for new innovations like connected cars and remote medicine.
Arm, which is also owned by Softbank and designs mobile microprocessors that power most of the world’s smartphones and tablets, said it “is complying with all of the latest regulations set forth by the U.S. government.”
The company told employees to halt all business deals with Huawei, the BBC reported, citing a company memo that said its designs contained “U.S. origin technology.”
In response to the report on Arm, Huawei said it recognizes that some of its partners are under pressure as a result of “politically motivated decisions” but that it’s “confident this regrettable situation can be resolved.”
British lawmakers are denouncing Prime Minister Theresa May’s latest proposal to withdraw from the European Union (EU) amid growing demands from her own Conservative Party for her resignation.
May said on Tuesday a bill she plans to present to Parliament next month would include a provision to vote on whether to hold a second referendum to leave the EU, a key demand of many opposition lawmakers.
May also offered closer trading arrangements with the EU as another incentive in what she called a “last chance” opportunity to finalize a Brexit deal.
Speaking before the House of Commons on Wednesday, May implored lawmakers to support her bill, warning a rejection would lead to “division and deadlock.”
May said her withdrawal bill would be disclosed Friday so that lawmakers would have time to study it.
Legislators previously spurned May’s exit deal three times and her latest attempt to win support faces an uphill fight. She plans to ask lawmakers to vote on the bill again during the week of June 3.
Members of May’s own Conservative Party accused her of relenting to pro-EU demands while opposition Labour Party lawmakers rejected her latest plan as too little too late.
On Tuesday, May said after Parliament votes on the measure, she will establish a timetable for her departure as leader of the Conservative Party and as prime minister.
A growing number of Conservative Party members, however, are pressing her to cancel the vote and step down sooner.
May is likely to face even more pressure when the results of this week’s European Parliament elections are released, as the Conservative Party is expected to suffer heavy losses.
The election will be held in Britain on Thursday, but the results won’t be announced until all European countries have finished voting late Sunday.
British citizens voted in a referendum to leave the EU three years ago and the country was scheduled to leave the EU on March 29, but the 28-nation bloc extended the deadline until October 31.
Palestinian officials say they have inaugurated their first solar panel plant as part of a plan to reduce their dependence on Israeli power sources.
Mohammed Mustafa, head of the government’s investment fund, says that Tuesday’s plant opening in the ancient West Bank city of Jericho is one of four planned plants. One has been donated from China.
He says the Palestinians rely almost entirely on power imported from Israel and the new plants are part of a long-term project to reduce that by 50% over the next decade. He says the four solar panel stations should cover about 30% of Palestinian power consumption.
Mustafa says the West Bank consumes about $700 million a year in electricity.
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Long-running research projects credited with pivotal discoveries about the harm that pesticides, air pollution and other hazards pose to children are in jeopardy or shutting down because the Environmental Protection Agency will not commit to their continued funding, researchers say.
The projects being targeted make up a more than $300 million, federally funded program that over the past two decades has exposed dangers to fetuses and children. Those findings have often led to increased pressure on the EPA for tighter regulations.
Children’s health researchers and environmental groups accuse the EPA of trying to squelch scientific studies that the agency views as running counter to the Trump administration’s mission of easing regulations and promoting business.
“A lot of the centers, including mine, have identified a lot of chemicals that are associated with diseases in children,” said Catherine Metayer, an epidemiologist who directs research into children’s leukemia at University of California at Berkeley through the federal program.
The EPA awarded smaller than average funding for the research grants for this year, asked Congress to cut funding for it from its budget, and has refused to commit to future funding for the program.
“The EPA anticipates future funding opportunities that support EPA’s high priority research topics, including children’s health research,” spokesman James Hewitt said, while declining to answer questions on the future for the national research projects.
Children’s centers at universities around the country typically get joint funding from the EPA and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in three- and five-year packages, with most packages running out in 2018 and 2019. With no word on future funding, researchers overall “have been kind of scrambling to find a way to continue that work which is so important,” said Tracey Woodruff, director of the children’s center at the University of California at San Francisco.
Woodruff’s federally funded work includes looking at how flame-retardant chemicals and PFAS compounds – a kind of stain-resistant, nonstick industrial compound – affect the placenta during pregnancy. The Trump EPA has come under increasing pressure from states to regulate PFAS as it shows up in more water supplies around the country.
With no news from the EPA on any more funding in the future, “we’ve been winding down for about a year” on work funded through those grants, Woodruff said.
On Tuesday, a banner across a website home page for the overall children’s research declared “EPA will no longer fund children’s health research.”
The EPA and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences have jointly funded the children’s environmental health research since 1997, through grants to at least two dozen children’s environmental research centers around the country. The annual grants averaged $15 million through 2017. In the current fiscal year, the EPA contributed $1.6 million, agency spokeswoman Maggie Sauerhage said.
The research often involves enrolling women while they are still pregnant and then following their children for years, to study environmental exposures and their effects as children grow, said Barbara Morrissey, a toxicologist and chairwoman of the EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee.
The long-term projects often produce much stronger results overall than one-off studies do, Morrissey said.
Each children’s center funded by the grants also works to spread information about environmental threats to local health workers and to families.
The institute is under the National Institutes of Health, which has numerous other children’s environmental research studies underway but said with the EPA joint program left hanging, it was considering a new program to put lessons learned about pediatric risks into practice in communities.
EPA’s funding for the grants comes from the agency’s Science To Achieve Results, or STAR, program for research into environmental threats.
The Trump administration 2020 budget request sought to eliminate funding for the STAR grants, and sought a nearly one-third cut in the EPA’s budget overall.
A House Appropriations subcommittee released its own budget proposal Tuesday to restore funding for the STAR grants and boost the agency’s overall budget from last year by 8%, rejecting the administration’s requests for cuts.
EPA spokespeople did not respond when asked why the EPA had asked Congress to end funding for the grant program, and whether the agency would commit to continuing the children’s health research if Congress overrides the EPA and restores funding for the grants, as expected.
The science journal Nature first reported funding concerns for the program.
In a statement Tuesday, Ken Cook of the Environmental Working Group said “crippling research to protect children’s health, while bowing to the agenda of the chemical industry, is the calling card of the EPA in the Trump administration.”
Even if the administration restores funding to previous levels, for one year or several years, the time span of grant cycles and grant-funded work means that uncertainty over continued federal support is making the intended multiyear research untenable, researchers and program supporters said.
“The whole point of these children’s centers is to be following children over time,” Morrissey, the chairwoman of the advisory committee to the EPA, said. “That’s why it’s so high-quality.”
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Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s restaurant chain in Britain has filed for bankruptcy protection, closing 22 of its 25 eateries and leaving some 1,000 people out of work.
The remaining outlets, two Jamie’s Italian restaurants and a Jamie’s Diner at Gatwick Airport outside London, will stay open, the financial firm KPMG, which will oversee the process, said in a statement Tuesday.
Oliver said on Twitter he was “devastated that our much-loved UK restaurants have gone into administration,” a form of bankruptcy protection, and thanked people “who have put their hearts and souls into this business over the years.”
Oliver gained fame as “The Naked Chef” on television, which aired in dozens of countries, after premiering in Britain some 20 years ago. The television success was followed by a number of cookbooks. The restaurant chain included Jamie’s Italian, Jamie Oliver’s Diner and Barbecoa steakhouses.
Five branches of the Australian arm of Jamie’s Italian have also been sold and another put into administration.
Oliver’s restaurants started to lose revenue in 2016. Business got so bad for the restaurant group that Oliver injected millions of dollars of his own money in an effort to turn the tide.
“The current trading environment for companies across the casual dining sector is as tough as I’ve ever seen,” Will Wright, an administrator at KPMG, said in a statement. “The directors at Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group have worked tirelessly to stabilize the business against a backdrop of rising costs and brittle consumer confidence.”
Other British chains have also had to close outlets. Earlier this year, cafe chain Patisserie Valerie was forced to close 70 outlets, at the cost of 920 jobs.
Celebrity chefs in the U.S. have also fallen on hard times. Thomas Keller closed Bouchon in Beverly Hills in 2017, saying it couldn’t remain profitable. That same year, Guy Fieri closed Guy’s American Kitchen and Bar in New York’s Times Square and Daniel Boulud closed DBGB Kitchen and Bar in New York, saying it didn’t get enough business during the week.
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A new personal home robot follows you around your home, navigating past obstacles, so you can multitask while staying connected. Deana Mitchell takes a tour.
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As the world marks Bee Day this week (May 20), it’s a good opportunity to check in on these industrious insects that are responsible for about 80 percent of all pollination worldwide. But something is wrong with the world’s bees and our existence might depend on figuring out why. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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The Trump administration is considering payments of $2 per bushel for soybeans, 63 cents per bushel for wheat and 4 cents per bushel for corn as part of a package of up to $20 billion to offset U.S. farmers’ losses from the trade war with China, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
Caitlin Eannello, spokeswoman for the National Association of Wheat Growers, said that 63 cents per bushel for wheat is the number the organization has been hearing for the next round of U.S. trade aid. “That is the number that we’ve been hearing, she told Reuters.
Those payments would exceed the rates paid last year to farmers in a similar aid package.
President Donald Trump earlier this month directed the Department of Agriculture to work on a new aid plan for farmers as Washington and Beijing intensified their 10-month-old trade war by raising tariffs on each other’s goods.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue last week said the new aid package was likely to be $15 billion to $20 billion, exceeding the up to $12 billion in aid rolled out last year to farmers. Most of it was likely to be direct payments, sources told Reuters.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Agriculture said the details of the aid package would be released soon, without commenting on the reported payment rates. One lobbyist source said the plan was likely to be announced this week.
The USDA spokeswoman added that the aid was designed to avoid skewing planting decisions. “Farmers should continue to make their planting and production decisions with the current market signals in mind, rather than some expectation of what a trade mitigation program might or might not look like,” she said in emailed comments to Reuters.
However, the aid was seen encouraging more soy planting at a time when supplies are already at record-high levels.
“That [proposed $2 bean payout] is a pretty enticing carrot, and that tells me that they [farmers] are going to try to get as many bean acres in as possible, at the expense of corn,” said Matt Connelly, analyst at the Hightower Report in Chicago.
“The reason is beans [futures] went south is, they saw that $2 a bushel, and that will entice them to plant beans until the July 4th weekend.”
Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures turned lower on the report on worries that farmers would plant more of the crop. Top importer China continues to shun U.S. soybeans.
The administration last year paid $1.65 per bushel for soybeans, 14 cents per bushel for wheat and 1 cent per bushel for corn.
Negotiations between the United States and China have soured dramatically since early May, when Chinese officials sought major changes to the text of a proposed deal that the Trump administration says had been largely agreed.
The dispute between the world’s two largest economies has cost billions, roiled global supply chains and rattled financial markets. American farmers, who helped carry Trump to his surprise 2016 election win, have been among the hardest hit.
Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources, said growers of other commodities were also to receive payments in this year’s aid package, but it did not provide rates. It said the plan could change as Trump could make adjustments.
The Trump administration wants any trade deal with China to include purchases of more than $1.2 trillion worth of American products, including agricultural commodities and industrial goods.
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The Portuguese economy is resisting the prevailing gloom in Europe.
Activity remained strong, with GDP rising by 0.5% in the first quarter, or 1.8% at an annual rate, compared with 1.2% in the euro zone, forecasts Brussels.
Following the trend of 2018, Portugal’s good economic health comes mainly from private consumption fueled by rising wages and employment dynamics. The preliminary data, says the national statistics institute, “reflect a significant acceleration in investment.”
The government deficit has fallen from 7.2% of GDP to 0.5% of GDP since 2014, and the unemployment rate from a peak of 17.9% in early 2013, to about 6% currently.
“The tourism sector has been the largest driver of the export recovery in Portugal,” Ben Westmore, the head of the Portugal desk in the Economics Department of the OECD, confirmed to VOA.
These numbers make Portugal the darling of international financial institutions. The head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, praised Portugal’s economic recovery recently in Lisbon. “Portugal and the Portuguese people deserve huge credit for their efforts, for which they should be proud,” Lagarde said.
Low wages
Despite the spectacular recovery and the fall of unemployment, a sense of precariousness and low wages are everywhere in Portugal. The minimum wage is only $669 (€600) per month — a number that has not prompted the return of many young adults, who left during the crisis. Between 2008 and 2014, 120,000 people left Portugal per year. Twenty percent were highly skilled workers, according to professor Joao Miguel Trancoso Lopes.
This sociologist undertook a study and interviewed many of them to understand their motivations to stay abroad or come back in their country.
“They do not feel Portugal is full of opportunities. The low wages are a real hurdle for them. They look for better jobs, outside of the country. Unlike the previous generations, the young Portuguese leaving abroad do not dream of returning home,” he explained to VOA.
This professor used to be paid $3,345 (€3,000) per month before the crisis. Today, he earns $2,901.99 (€2,600) per month. The health care system is another sector that was heavily targeted for budget cuts during the crisis.
Bruno Maia is a neurologist in Lisbon. He acknowledges the current government took some measures to lift the burden, such as hiring of doctors and nurses.
“The damages made to our health care system are so pronounced that these new jobs do not compensate what was lost during the crisis. It is not enough. Problems are accumulating and we are struggling,” he underscores to VOA. For example, Maia says non-emergency procedures, like an MRI, could take up a year to be performed in Portugal.
Besides these issues, Antonio Costa, the Socialist prime minister who vowed in 2015 to overturn austerity, remains popular in Portugal. His party and its allies likely will win the coming European elections on May 26.
“Euroskepticism, which grew a lot during the crisis, it is not as important today. We do not expect a defeat as the Socialist Party is popular in Portugal,” Andre Freire, a political science professor at Lisbon University Institute, told VOA.
Portugal has 21 seats at the European Parliament.
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More than 170 American shoe manufacturers and retailers, including such well-known athletic shoe brands as Nike, Under Armour and Adidas, urged President Donald Trump on Tuesday to exempt footwear from any further tariffs he imposes on imported goods from China.
The lobby for the shoe industry, the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, told Trump in a letter that his proposed 25 percent tariff on shoes imported from China “would be catastrophic for our consumers, our companies and the American economy as a whole.” The industry imported $11.4 billion worth of shoes from China last year, although some manufacturers have been shifting production elsewhere, especially to Vietnam and Cambodia.
It said the proposed tariffs on shoes made in China could cost U.S. consumers more than $7 billion annually on top of existing levies.
“There should be no misunderstanding that U.S. consumers pay for tariffs on products that are imported,” the 173 companies said, rejecting Trump’s frequent erroneous statement that China pays the tariffs and that the money goes directly to the U.S. Treasury.
Trump has been engaged in a string of reciprocal tariff increases with China on imported goods arriving in each other’s ports as the world’s two biggest economies have tried for months — unsuccessfully so far — to negotiate a new trade pact.
After Trump imposed new 25 percent taxes on $200 billion worth of Chinese products earlier this month, he also set in motion plans to impose a new round of levies on virtually all Chinese imports, another $300 billion worth of goods, including shoe imports, clothing and electronics.
The U.S. leader said that if American companies did not like the tariffs on Chinese imports, they could move their production inside the United States or to another country whose manufactured products are not taxed when they are sent to the U.S. But the footwear lobby rejected Trump’s suggestion.
“Footwear is a very capital-intensive industry, with years of planning required to make sourcing decisions, and companies cannot simply move factories to adjust to these changes,” the industry told Trump.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s office has published a list of products that would be covered by the expanded tariffs and set a hearing for June 17.
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Music has long helped people express their emotions and connect with one another. Over the years, medical studies have proved that music has many health benefits, too. They range from facilitating regular breathing and lifting mood to improving emotional function and motor control in patients. Faiza Elmasry tells us more about music therapy. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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A panel of World Health Organization experts says strategies must be strengthened to combat the worsening Ebola epidemic in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The WHO’s latest report counted 1,738 cases of Ebola in Congo, including 1,218 deaths.
Congo’s minister of health, Oly Ilungo, likened the Ebola epidemic to a multi-headed dragon. Speaking through an interpreter, he said the epidemic began in one place, Mangina, but keeps popping up elsewhere.
“Our response, therefore, needs to continually adapt itself to the situation,” said Ilungo. “We need to continually adapt and change our strategy bearing in mind lessons learned.”
He said prevention measures, surveillance, the tracing of infected people, timely treatment and safe burial practices must be maintained. At the same time, he said old tools need to be refreshed and improved.
He proposed setting up a data-driven system, which compiles all the information produced in the response effort.
“Increasingly, it manages to carry out analyses that allow us to get ahead of the problem and we can identify the danger areas where there might be a greater risk of the virus spreading and we can get ahead of the problem,” he added.
The WHO regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, finds the increasing number of new Ebola cases extremely worrying and challenging. She warned the risk of the disease spreading beyond Congo’s borders is very high.
She said the DRC’s nine neighboring countries are aware of the dangers and, with the help of the WHO, have taken many steps to prepare for that possibility.
“We have 16 Ebola-treatment centers and units having been established across the nine countries,” she said. “And, in addition over 4,500 health workers have been trained to be able to detect and manage Ebola cases.The countries have continued to engage with communities to raise their awareness in all high-risk areas.”
WHO officials are appealing for intensified international political engagement and financial support to combat Ebola. They warn the further spread of the dangerous disease would have serious social and economic regional implications and would trigger an even greater crisis.
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Doubts about vaccines have spread across social media like a disease and false information that “kills people” should be taken down by the companies running digital platforms, the head of global vaccine alliance Gavi said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a U.S.-sponsored event on the sidelines of the World Health Organization’s annual assembly in Geneva, Gavi CEO Seth Berkley said there was a strong scientific consensus about the safety of vaccines.
But social media algorithms favored sensational content over scientific facts, rapidly convincing people who had never seen family members die from preventable illness.
“We have to think about it as a disease. This is a disease,” Berkley said. “This spreads at the speed of light, literally.”
WHO says poor vaccination coverage is causing measles outbreaks globally, with numbers spiking in countries that were previously almost free of the disease, including the United States.
Misinformation about vaccines, which the WHO says save two million lives annually, was not a freedom of speech issue and social media firms need to take it offline, Berkley said. “I remind people that this kills people,” he said.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said complacency, misunderstanding and misinformation were causing vaccination rates to decline globally, with tragic results.
“In my country, social media conspiracy groups confuse well-meaning parents so they hesitate to get the recommended vaccinations,” Azar said.
He rejected any criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump, who repeatedly and erroneously tweeted about links between vaccines and autism in the years before he became president.
“A study says @Autism is out of control — a 78% increase in 10 years. Stop giving monstrous combined vaccinations,” Trump tweeted in 2012.
Azar said Trump was “extremely firm” in support of vaccination.
“If you had been paying attention in the last month, you would know that the President of the United States, President Trump, was very clear and emphatic: get your shots, get your kids vaccinated, vaccines are safe,” Azar said.
Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam said health authorities needed to “up our game,” adding that she was working with Twitter, Facebook, Google and other tech companies.
“You’ve got to get into the trenches … and begin to get engaged much more on a personal and emotional level, because people don’t understand statistics and data. If you do that
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Trump administration sanctions against Huawei have begun to bite even though their dimensions remain unclear. U.S. companies that supply the Chinese tech powerhouse with computer chips saw their stock prices slump Monday, and Huawei faces decimated smartphone sales with the anticipated loss of Google’s popular software and services.
The U.S. move escalates trade-war tensions with Beijing, but also risks making China more self-sufficient over time.
Here’s a look at what’s behind the dispute and what it means.
What’s this about?
Last week, the U.S. Commerce Department said it would place Huawei on the so-called Entity List, effectively barring U.S. firms from selling it technology without government approval.
Google said it would continue to support existing Huawei smartphones but future devices will not have its flagship apps and services, including maps, Gmail and search. Only basic services would be available, making Huawei phones less desirable. Separately, Huawei is the world’s leading provider of networking equipment, but it relies on U.S. components including computer chips. About a third of Huawei’s suppliers are American.
Why punish Huawei?
The U.S. defense and intelligence communities have long accused Huawei of being an untrustworthy agent of Beijing’s repressive rulers — though without providing evidence. The U.S. government’s sanctions are widely seen as a means of pressuring reluctant allies in Europe to exclude Huawei equipment from their next-generation wireless networks. Washington says it’s a question of national security and punishment of Huawei for skirting sanctions against Iran, but the backdrop is a struggle for economic and technological dominance.
The politics of President Donald Trump’s escalating tit-for-tat trade war have co-opted a longstanding policy goal of stemming state-backed Chinese cyber theft of trade and military secrets. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said last week that the sanctions on Huawei have nothing to do with the trade war and could be revoked if Huawei’s behavior were to change.
The sanctions’ bite
Analysts predict consumers will abandon Huawei for other smartphone makers if Huawei can only use a stripped-down version of Android. Huawei, now the No. 2 smartphone supplier, could fall behind Apple to third place. Google could seek exemptions, but would not comment on whether it planned to do so.
Who uses Huawei anyway?
While most consumers in the U.S. don’t even know how to pronounce Huawei (it’s “HWA-way”), its brand is well known in most of the rest of the world, where people have been buying its smartphones in droves.
Huawei stealthily became an industry star by plowing into new markets, developing a lineup of phones that offer affordable options for low-income households and luxury models that are siphoning upper-crust sales from Apple and Samsung in China and Europe. About 13 percent of its phones are now sold in Europe, estimates Gartner analyst Annette Zimmermann.
That formula helped Huawei establish itself as the world’s second-largest seller of smartphones during the first three months of this year, according to the research firm IDC. Huawei shipped 59 million smartphones in the January-March period, nearly 23 million more than Apple.
Ripple effects
The U.S. ban could have unwelcome ripple effects in the U.S., given how much technology Huawei buys from U.S. companies, especially from makers of the microprocessors that go into smartphones, computers, internet networking gear and other gadgetry.
The list of chip companies expected to be hit hardest includes Micron Technologies, Qualcomm, Qorvo and Skyworks Solutions, which all have listed Huawei as a major customer in their annual reports. Others likely to suffer are Xilinx, Broadcom and Texas Instruments, according to industry analysts.
Being cut off from Huawei will also compound the pain the chip sector is already experiencing from the Trump administration’s rising China tariffs.
The Commerce Department on Monday announced an expected grace period of 90 days or more, easing the immediate hit on U.S. suppliers. It can extend that stay, and also has the option of issuing exemptions for especially hard-hit companies.
Much could depend on whether countries including France, Germany, the U.K. and the Netherlands continue to refuse to completely exclude Huawei equipment from their wireless networks.
The grace period allows U.S. providers to alert Huawei to security vulnerabilities and engage the Chinese company in research on standards for next-generation 5G wireless networks.
It also gives operators of U.S. rural broadband networks that use Huawei routers time to switch them out.
Could this backfire?
Huawei is already the biggest global supplier of networking equipment, and is now likely to move toward making all components domestically. China already has a policy seeking technological independence by 2025.
U.S. tech companies, facing a drop in sales, could respond with layoffs. More than 52,000 technology jobs in the U.S. are directly tied to China exports, according to the Computing Technology Industry Association, a trade group also known as CompTIA.
What about harm to Google?
Google may lose some licensing fees and opportunities to show ads on Huawei phones, but it still will probably be a financial hiccup for Google and its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., which is expected to generate $160 billion in revenue this year.
The Apple effect
In theory, Huawei’s losses could translate into gains for both Samsung and Apple at a time both of those companies are trying to reverse a sharp decline in smartphone sales.
But Apple also stands to be hurt if China decides to target it in retaliation. Apple is particularly vulnerable because most iPhones are assembled in China. The Chinese government, for example could block crucial shipments to the factories assembling iPhones or take other measures that disrupt the supply chain.
Any retaliatory move from China could come on top of a looming increase on tariffs by the U.S. that would hit the iPhone, forcing Apple to raise prices or reduce profits.
What’s more, the escalating trade war may trigger a backlash among Chinese consumers against U.S. products, including the iPhone.
“Beijing could stoke nationalist sentiment over the treatment of Huawei, which could result in protests against major U.S.technology brands,” CompTIA warned.
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Information technologies are changing the lives of many Cameroonian farmers, who previously were dependent on brokers, who charged fees to serve as middlemen to purchasers. Now they can use the Internet to find customers more easily and increase their income. Moki Edwin Kindzeka narrates this report by Anne Mireille Nzouankeu from Douala in Cameroon.
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Extreme weather and rising sea levels are putting pressure on the natural world and on the infrastructure we have put in place to manage waste water. Rebuilding aging infrastructure is expensive so National Science Foundation research is teaching old infrastructure new tricks to handle new problems. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Federal health officials report 41 new cases of measles across the U.S. last week, bringing the number of total cases for the year to 880 — the highest number recorded since 1994.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports outbreaks in 24 states, with only the very Deep South and Northern Plains spared.
The CDC says outbreaks in several states, including California, Georgia, Michigan and New York, are linked to travelers who are suspected of bringing back the virus from countries with large measles outbreaks, such as Israel, the Philippines and Ukraine.
The CDC recommends vaccinations for everyone older than 12 months, except those who already had the disease as children and have become immune.
The virus has spread among school-age children whose parents have chosen not to vaccinate them. Parents who do not vaccinate their children often cite religious beliefs or the concerns the vaccine may cause autism or other health problems, despite scientific studies that have debunked such claims.
The World Health Organization says parents who refuse to inoculate their children against such diseases is one of the top 10 threats to global health.
The measles vaccine, first available in the 1960s, is considered safe and effective by most public health experts, who say that it also can save lives.
The measles virus is highly contagious and is spread primarily by coughing and sneezing.
It is still a common disease in many parts of the world. It was declared eradicated in the United States in 2000 with only a handful of cases reported in the U.S. most every year since then.
Last week, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) released an update on measles activity in the Americas. It said 12 countries have reported cases in 2019: Argentina, the Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, the U.S., Uruguay, and Venezuela.
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The U.S.-China trade war has not spared European companies in China. More than one-third of them are feeling a direct impact on their businesses and fear the situation will worsen in the coming weeks.
“They [European companies] are feeling more anxious than they felt last year, rising tensions such as the trade tensions that we are facing currently that don’t seem to be on the point of being sorted out quickly,” European Chamber Vice President Charlotte Roule told VOA.
The trade conflict has come on top of several other problems faced by European companies in China.
“Macroeconomic challenges such as the Chinese economic slowdown and global economic slowdown are worrying them,” Roule said.
In a survey conducted last January and released Monday, the European Chamber of Commerce in China reported the trade war has impacted 25% of its members engaged in U.S.-bound exports from their operations in China.
Since January, the United States has since expanded its tariff measures against China-made goods, while Beijing has announced its own set of retaliatory measures. These moves would affect a larger number of European companies, including those that import products from the U.S.
Significantly, the survey showed that only five percent of the chamber’s member companies see the trade tussle as an opportunity for themselves.
Intertwined relations
The trade war involves two countries at the political level, but has impacted other businesses with overlapping interests and intertwined connections across regions and industry segments.
Nick Marro, an analyst at the Economic Intelligence Unit, cited the example of China-based joint ventures between European and China companies engaged in producing electronic components. They will be hit by Washington’s decision to raise taxes on goods made in China. Similarly, U.S.-based European companies exporting to China would be affected.
“Trade wars are very complicated. You can’t isolate these effects to one or two countries,” Marro said.
The extent of the trade war’s impact varies from one industry sector to another, said Jacob Gunter, the chamber’s policy and communications coordinator. But Gunter said there is considerable fear that the impact might prove to be widespread and severe.
“European companies share many of the U.S.’ concerns, but strongly oppose the blunt use of tariffs,” according to the chamber.
The trade war was ranked fourth among the concerns of European companies when the survey was taken last January. But the companies were more concerned about the economic slowdown in China and the world, besides the rising labor cost in China.
“European firms confront the same challenges facing their U.S. rivals, such as local protectionism or burdensome administrative processes. And developments in the trade war to date have yielded little immediate progress on these issues,” said Marro.
Even without the trade war, European companies face considerable difficulties due largely to regulatory controls and inadequate implementation of market access rules made by the central government in Beijing.
Chamber members presented a bleak outlook of the business situation in China in the coming years. About 47% of those surveyed said they expect regulatory obstacles to actually increase in the next five years.
The survey reported that business optimism on growth over the next two years dropped from 62% in 2018 to 45% in 2019.
Joining hands
Analysts said China will increasingly try to woo the European Union and its markets in order to protect itself from aggressive U.S. trade actions. But the bloc is undecided on what stance to take, because any move in favor of China would not be lauded in Washington.
“The EU is kind of in a difficult position. People are pushing the EU to choose the U.S. or China. I think the EU is choosing the EU,” Gunter said. “The EU is taking necessary measures to protect its own interest and expand business relations with China,” he said.
“There is an opportunity for China and the EU to work together. As far as the trade conflict is concerned, it should try to mediate the conflict, instead of taking sides,” he said.
European companies said there is no sign of the Chinese government trying to make life easier for them, even after battling the United States in the trade conflict for 10 months.
Last January, most European companies told surveyors they have not changed their strategy owing to the trade war. But analysts said many of them will have to rethink the way they do business.
“European companies will seek to minimize their exposure to political risk by adopting their global supply chains, said Max Zenglein, head of economic research at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in Berlin.
“Export-oriented businesses, in particular at the lower end of the value chain, are likely to shift to other Southeast Asian nations. This is, however, a process that takes time,” he said.
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In opening this year’s World Health Assembly, WHO General-Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressed the importance of universal health coverage as an essential component in the quest for a healthier, safer, fairer world. Nearly 4,000 delegates from WHO’s 194 member states were on hand to hear the WHO chief outline the main health achievements of the past year, and current as well as future challenges.
Tedros campaigned vigorously for the adoption of universal health coverage in the run-up to last year’s election for WHO director-general. Now a year later, he told delegates attending the World Health Assembly that great progress toward achieving national health systems has been made under his watch.
He cited ambitious initiatives which have been implemented or are in the process of being enacted in countries as diverse as Kenya, South Africa, the Philippines, Egypt and El Salvador.
But he noted that universal health coverage is not possible without primary health care. He said primary health care is where the battle for human health is won or lost.
“Strong primary health care is the front line in defending the right to health, including sexual and reproductive rights. It is through strong primary care that countries can prevent, detect and treat noncommunicable diseases. It is through strong primary health care that outbreaks can be detected and stopped before they become epidemics,” Tedros said
Over the past year, Tedros said significant progress has been made against many of the world’s causes of death and disease. He said a historic milestone has been achieved with the rollout of the world’s first malaria vaccine in Malawi and Ghana.
He said a new initiative was launched to eliminate cervical cancer, which kills more than 300,000 women every year. He said battles have been won against a number of infectious and noncommunicable diseases.
At the same time, he noted many emergencies remain to be addressed. Among them, he said, is the fight to contain the deadly Ebola virus in conflict-ridden North Kivu and Ituri provinces in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
He said the risk of Ebola spreading to other areas remains very high, even though better tools than ever, such as preventive vaccines, are available to fight this deadly disease.
“But we are not just fighting a virus. We are fighting insecurity. We are fighting violence. We are fighting misinformation. We are fighting mistrust. And we are fighting the politicization of an outbreak,” he said.
Tedros noted Ebola treatment centers have been attacked by armed men, and a WHO doctor was killed in one of these attacks. Despite the many dangers, he said WHO and its staff remain undeterred and will continue their work until the job is finished.
The giant U.S. internet search engine Google said Monday it is restricting China’s Huawei from access to its Android operating system in compliance with the Trump administration’s blacklisting of the world’s second biggest smartphone maker as a national security threat.
Google said it is “reviewing the implications” of last week’s order requiring export licenses for technology sales to Huawei.
The U.S. and Chinese companies said millions of Huawei phones already in use around the world would continue to have access to such popular Google services as Gmail, YouTube and maps.
But last week’s U.S. order would curb the future transfer of hardware, software and services to Huawei, possibly limiting the Chinese company’s expansion globally and its efforts to overtake South Korea’s Samsung as the world’s biggest smart phone manufacturer.
Google services were already banned in China, so analysts say the impact of the curb on technology sales could mostly affect Huawei’s international sales, making its phones less attractive to customers if they do not have Google features. Last year, Huawei sold nearly half of its production of 208 million smart phones overseas and the rest in China.
“Huawei will continue to provide security updates and after-sales services to all existing Huawei and Honor smartphone and tablet products, covering those that have been sold and that are still in stock globally,” a Huawei spokesman said.
The Chinese firm is at the center of ongoing trade disputes between Washington and Beijing. The U.S. contends that Huawei’s technology could be used to spy on Americans, allegations Huawei has repeatedly denied.
China and the U.S. are in the midst of months-long trade talks with the world’s two biggest economies engaging in tit-for-tat tariff increases on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of each other’s exports.
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Ford plans to cut 7,000 jobs, or 10 percent of its global workforce, as part of a reorganization as it revamps its vehicle offerings, the company said Monday.
The reorganization will involve some layoffs and reassignments and should be complete by the end of August, a Ford spokeswoman said. Ford has been phasing out most sedan models in the United States as more consumers have opted for pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles.
The move, which began last year, will lead to 800 layoffs in North America in total, including about 500 this week, said Ford spokeswoman Marisa Bradley.
The company has yet to determine the specifics in other regions, she said.
“As we have said, Ford is undergoing an organizational redesign process helping us create a more dynamic, agile and empowered workforce, while becoming more fit as a business,” Bradley said.
“We understand this is a challenging time for our team, but these steps are necessary to position Ford for success today and yet preparing to thrive in the future.”
Ford had signaled it expected significant job cuts in April 2018 when it announced a plan to phase out several small models in North America. At the same time, the company is ramping up investment in electric cars and autonomous driving technology.
General Motors has also undertaken job cuts over the last year for similar reasons.
Shares of Ford dipped 0.4 percent to $10.25 in early trading.