The U.S. state of Florida has a new law banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. In this presidential campaign, Donald Trump is defending the right of states to regulate reproductive rights. Joe Biden says that decentralized authority threatens women’s lives. VOA correspondent Scott Stearns has the story
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London — Climate change will cut the average income of people around the world by one-fifth by 2050, according to a new report published in the journal Nature by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
As many parts of the world experience extreme weather, the global impacts of a changing climate are set to cost $38 trillion a year by the middle of the century, the report warns — a reduction in the world’s average income of some 19%.
The losses are already locked in, independent of future emission choices, the report says.
Maximilian Kotz, co-author of the report, told VOA there is little the world can do to mitigate the impact.
“What we find is that over the next 25 to 30 years, impacts on the economy are consistent across different emissions scenarios, regardless of whether we enter a high-emission or low-emission world,” he said.
Climate change, and especially higher temperatures, have been shown to impact worker productivity, said Kotz.
“That’s then going to be manifest across numerous different industries — although it’s particularly strong, those impacts, when workers are outdoors, so in contexts like manufacturing sectors,” he said. “And then, we also know that impacts on agricultural productivity are very strong from again, particularly high temperatures.”
The research looked at climate and economic data from the past 40 years from more than 1,600 regions across the world and used it to assess future impacts. Those least responsible for global emissions are likely to be worst hit.
“Committed losses are projected for all regions except those at very high latitudes, at which reductions in temperature variability bring benefits. The largest losses are committed at lower latitudes in regions with lower cumulative historical emissions and lower present-day income,” the report said.
The authors conclude that tackling climate change would be far cheaper than putting up with the economic damage and estimate the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions would be just one-sixth of the $38 trillion impact of climate change by 2050.
The research is likely to underestimate the total economic impact of climate change.
“Important channels such as impacts from heatwaves, sea-level rise, tropical cyclones and tipping points, as well as non-market damages such as those to ecosystems and human health, are not considered in these estimates,” the report said.
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The average income of people around the world will be cut by one-fifth because of climate change by the middle of the century, according to a new report by Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, published in the journal Nature. Henry Ridgwell has more.
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Mai Mahiu, Kenya — Kenyan President William Ruto on Tuesday deployed the military to evacuate everyone living in flood-prone areas in a nation where 171 people have been killed since March by torrential rains.
Seasonal rains, amplified by the El Nino weather pattern, have devastated the East African nation, with floodwaters engulfing villages and threatening to unleash even more damage in the weeks to come.
In the worst incident, which killed nearly 50 villagers, a makeshift dam burst in the Rift Valley before dawn Monday, sending a torrent of water and mud gushing down a hill and swallowing everything in its path.
The tragedy in Kamuchiri village, Nakuru county, was the deadliest episode in the country since the start of the March-May rainy season.
Ruto, who visited the victims of the Kamuchiri deluge after chairing a Cabinet meeting in Nairobi, said his government had drawn up a map of neighborhoods at risk of flooding.
“The military has been mobilized, the national youth service has been mobilized, all security agencies have been mobilized to assist citizens in such areas to evacuate to avoid any dangers of loss of lives,” he said.
People living in the affected areas will have 48 hours to move, he said.
“The forecast is that rain is going to continue, and the likelihood of flooding and people losing lives is real. Therefore, we must take preemptive action,” Ruto said.
“It is not a time for guesswork, we are better off safe than sorry.”
The Kamuchiri disaster — which killed at least 48 people dead — cut off a road, uprooted trees and destroyed homes and vehicles. Some 26 people were hospitalized, Ruto said, with fears the death toll could rise as search and rescue operations continued.
The Cabinet warned that two dams — Masinga and Kiambere — both less than 200 kilometers (125 miles) northeast of the capital, had “reached historic highs,” portending disaster for those downstream.
“While the government encourages voluntary evacuation, all those who remain within the areas affected by the directive will be relocated forcibly in the interest of their safety,” a statement said.
Monday’s tragedy came six years after a dam accident at Solai, also in Nakuru county, killed 48 people, sending millions of liters of muddy water raging through homes and destroying power lines.
The May 2018 disaster involving a private reservoir on a coffee estate also followed weeks of torrential rains that sparked deadly floods and mudslides.
Opposition politicians and lobby groups have accused Ruto’s government of being unprepared and slow to respond to the crisis despite weather warnings, demanding that it declare the floods a national disaster.
Kenya’s main opposition leader, Raila Odinga, said Tuesday the authorities had failed to make “advance contingency plans” for the extreme weather.
“The government has been talking big on climate change, yet when the menace comes in full force, we have been caught unprepared,” he said. “We have therefore been reduced to planning, searching and rescuing at the same time.”
Environment Minister Soipan Tuya told a press briefing in Nairobi that the government was stepping up efforts to be better prepared for such events.
“We continue to focus on the need to invest in early warning systems that prepare our population — days, weeks and months ahead of extreme weather events, such as the heavy rainfall we’re experiencing.”
The international community, including the United Nations and African Union Commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat, have sent condolences and pledged solidarity with the affected families.
The weather has also left a trail of destruction in neighboring Tanzania, where at least 155 people have been killed in flooding and landslides.
Late last year, more than 300 people died in rains and floods in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, just as the region was trying to recover from its worst drought in four decades.
El Nino is a naturally occurring climate pattern typically associated with increased heat worldwide, leading to drought in some parts of the world and heavy rains elsewhere.
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Paris, France — G7 environment ministers committed on Tuesday to ramp up the production and deployment of battery storage technology, an essential component for increasing renewable energy and combating climate change.
Here is how and why batteries play a vital role in the energy transition:
Growing demand
Batteries have been central to the rise of electric vehicles (EVs) but are also critical to wind and solar power because of the intermittent nature of these energy sources.
Surplus electricity must be stored in batteries to stabilize distribution regardless of peaks in demand, or breaks in supply at night or during low winds.
Battery deployment in the energy sector last year increased more than 130 percent from 2022, according to a report released last week by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The main markets are China, the European Union and the United States.
Following closely are Britain, South Korea, Japan and developing nations in Africa, where solar and storage technology is seen as the gateway to energy access.
Six-fold goal
To triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030 — a goal set at the UN climate conference in December — the IEA says a six-fold increase in battery storage will be necessary.
Clean energy is essential to reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels and to hope to keep the international target of restricting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The total storage capacity required to achieve this target is an estimated 1,500 gigawatts by 2030.
Of this, 1,200 GW will need to be supplied by batteries.
Cost challenges
In less than 15 years, the cost of batteries has fallen by 90 percent.
“The combination of solar PV and batteries is today competitive with new coal plants in India. And just in the next few years, it will be cheaper than new coal in China and gas-fired power in the United States,” IEA chief Fatih Birol said last week.
“But still the pace is not fast enough to reach our goals in terms of climate change and energy security.”
Costs will have to come down further, he said, while calling for supply chains to be diversified.
Most batteries are currently produced by China.
But some 40 percent of planned battery manufacturing projects are in the United States and Europe, according to the IEA.
If those projects are realized, they would be nearly sufficient to meet the needs of those countries.
Metal matters
Another thorny issue is the availability of critical metals like lithium and cobalt that are essential to make batteries.
Experts say the development chemical alternatives could complement the dominant lithium-ion technology.
“Transition in the technology will reduce the amount of lithium” needed, said Brent Wanner, head of the IEA’s power sector unit, adding, “this includes shifting to sodium-ion batteries.”
Beyond 2030, high-density solid-state batteries that offer a longer lifespan are expected to become commercially available.
There are other storage options, although not as widely applicable or available as batteries.
Pumped storage hydropower has long been used in the hydroelectric sector.
The transformation of electricity into hydrogen, which can be stored and transported, is a new technology expected to become more readily available.
Be flexible
Renewable energy is not entirely reliant on storage and measures can be taken to improve the flexibility of its production to meet demands.
Industry and governments are gearing up for the transition.
The European Union’s Energy Regulators Agency called on member states in September to assess their “flexibility potential” based on estimates that renewables will need to double by 2030.
Such a rise requires greater “flexibility” in grids, meaning energy can be stored and distributed consistently despite fluctuating production and demand.
The G7 said Tuesday it would not only support more production and use of battery storage, but promote technological advancements in the sector as well as grid infrastructure.
SHANGHAI — The first scientist to publish a sequence of the COVID-19 virus in China staged a sit-in protest outside his lab after authorities locked him out of the facility — a sign of the Beijing’s continuing pressure on scientists conducting research on the coronavirus.
Zhang Yongzhen wrote in an online post Monday that he and his team had been suddenly notified they were being evicted from their lab, the latest in a series of setbacks, demotions and ousters since the virologist published the sequence in January 2020 without state approval.
When Zhang tried to go to the lab over the weekend, guards barred him from entering. In protest, he sat outside on flattened cardboard in drizzling rain, pictures from the scene posted online show. News of the protest spread widely on Chinese social media and Zhang told a colleague he slept outside the lab — but it was not clear Tuesday if he remained there.
“I won’t leave, I won’t quit, I am pursuing science and the truth!” he wrote in a post on Chinese social media platform Weibo that was later deleted.
In an online statement, the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center said that Zhang’s lab was being renovated and was closed for “safety reasons.” It added that it had provided Zhang’s team an alternative laboratory space.
But Zhang wrote online that his team wasn’t offered an alternative until after they were notified of their eviction, and that the lab offered didn’t meet safety standards for conducting their research, leaving his team in limbo.
Zhang’s latest difficulty reflects how China has sought to control information related to the virus: An Associated Press investigation found that the government froze meaningful domestic and international efforts to trace it from the first weeks of the outbreak. That pattern continues to this day, with labs closed, collaborations shattered, foreign scientists forced out and Chinese researchers barred from leaving the country.
When reached by phone on Tuesday, Zhang said it was “inconvenient” for him to speak, saying there were other people listening in. In an email Monday to collaborator Edward Holmes seen by AP, Zhang confirmed he was sleeping outside his lab after guards barred him from entering.
An AP reporter was blocked by a guard at an entrance to the compound housing Zhang’s lab. A staff member at the National Health Commission, China’s top health authority, said by phone that it was not the main department in charge and referred questions to the Shanghai government. The Shanghai government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Zhang’s ordeal started when he and his team decoded the virus on Jan. 5, 2020, and wrote an internal notice warning Chinese authorities of its potential to spread — but did not make the sequence public. The next day, Zhang’s lab was ordered temporarily shut by China’s top health official, and Zhang came under pressure by Chinese authorities.
Around the time, China had reported several dozen people were being treated for a respiratory illness in the central city of Wuhan. Possible cases of the same illness had been reported in Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan involving recent travelers to the city.
Foreign scientists soon learned that Zhang and other Chinese scientists had deciphered the virus and called for him to publish. Zhang published his sequence of the coronavirus on Jan. 11, 2020, despite a lack of government permission.
Sequencing a virus is key to the development of test kits, disease control measures and vaccinations. The virus eventually spread to every corner of the world, triggering a pandemic that disrupted lives and commerce, prompted widespread lockdowns and killed millions of people.
Zhang was later awarded prizes in recognition for his work.
But Zhang’s publication of the sequence also prompted additional scrutiny of his lab, according to Holmes, Zhang’s collaborator and a virologist at the University of Sydney. Zhang was removed from a post at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and barred from collaborating with some of his former partners, crippling his research.
“Ever since he defied the authorities by releasing the genome sequence of the virus that causes COVID-19 there has been a campaign against him,” Holmes said. “He’s been broken by this process and I’m amazed he has been able to work at all.”
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geneva — Countries trying to negotiate a new global agreement on combating future pandemics began bridging their differences Monday, but they’re racing against time to seal a deal.
The 194 nations in the World Health Organization are back at its Geneva headquarters for one last round of negotiations, after a two-year effort to secure a landmark accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response overran last month’s deadline.
Issued with a new, slimmed-down draft text that kicks some of the tougher topics down the road, countries began going through its 37 articles in turn.
However, the handful of articles opened Monday were still being negotiated as the day’s session was ending, with side discussion groups trying to come up with solutions.
“It’s going as was to be expected. Most member states indicated that with this new text we are on the right track, but at the same time there are still a lot of things that need to be addressed,” talks co-chair Roland Driece told AFP.
“The process is very time-consuming, and time is our biggest enemy,” the Dutch health diplomat said. “There are outstanding issues which are complicated — but time is not our friend.”
Sting of COVID
The goal of the talks, which last 12 hours a day and run until May 10, is to get an agreement ready for adoption at the WHO’s annual assembly of member states, which starts May 27.
In December 2021, the raw sting of COVID-19 — which shredded economies, crippled health systems and killed millions — motivated countries to seek a binding framework of commitments aimed at preventing another such disaster.
But big differences quickly emerged on how to go about it.
The main disputes revolve around access and equity: access to pathogens detected within countries; access to pandemic-fighting products such as vaccines produced from that knowledge; and equitable distribution of not only counterpandemic tests, treatments and vaccinations but the means to produce them.
The new draft focuses on setting up the basic framework and pushes some of the trickier details into further talks running into 2026, notably on how the planned WHO Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) System will work in practice.
Clash of narratives
One senior figure in the negotiations said there was a positive spirit, but that needed to be translated into “concrete action.” Another said the talks were “in the swing now,” with movement expected Tuesday.
Nongovernmental organizations following the talks at WHO headquarters said it was difficult to read how they were progressing.
“We’re witnessing a clash of narratives: We are either near the collapse, or the light at the end of the tunnel,” Jaume Vidal, senior policy adviser with Health Action International, told AFP.
“I was convinced that the situation was worse than it seems,” Vidal said. “Discussions are taking place — that’s already a step forward — but we’re still missing some specific steps. We need public commitments on some of the articles.”
African unity
Alongside the African group, the Group for Equity bloc of countries is trying to ensure developing nations are not cut adrift again when it comes to accessing vaccines, tests and treatments.
African Union health ministers released a statement Monday committing to getting “legal certainty for both users and providers” from the PABS system.
“Africa stands ready to play its part and commits to engage actively in the ongoing negotiations,” the ministers said, following a meeting in Addis Ababa.
They called for an international financing mechanism with explicit new, sustainable and increased funding from developed countries for pandemic preparedness and response.
Indonesia has been a key player in the Group for Equity.
Wiku Adisasmito, one of Indonesia’s lead negotiators at the Geneva talks, said both parts of the PABS system — having quick access to detected pathogens, and sharing the resulting benefits, such as vaccines — needed to be on an equal footing.
“That’s key, not only for Indonesia but for most developing countries,” he told AFP.
“All countries are not equal in terms of capacity, and the pathogens are only coming from hot spots,” he said, explaining that developing countries needed financial support to ramp up their surveillance for emerging dangerous pathogens in animals and the environment.
If the talks needed an even greater reminder of urgency, the WHO has raised alarm in recent weeks about the exponential growth of H5N1 bird flu, with concerns about what could happen if it starts being transmitted between humans.
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Not only is climate change responsible for sea level rise and extreme weather events, but a new peer-reviewed study signals it may also impact global timekeeping. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has the details.
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LAGOS, Nigeria — When a small number of cases of locally transmitted malaria were found in the United States last year, it was a reminder that climate change is reviving or migrating the threat of some diseases. But across the African continent malaria has never left, killing or sickening millions of people.
Take Funmilayo Kotun, a 66-year-old resident of Makoko, an informal neighborhood in Nigeria’s Lagos city. Its ponds of dirty water provide favorable breeding conditions for malaria-spreading mosquitoes. Kotun can’t afford insecticide-treated bed nets that cost between $7 and $21 each, much less antimalarial medications or treatment.
For World Malaria Day on Thursday, here is what you need to know about the situation in Africa:
Malaria is still widespread
The malaria parasite mostly spreads to people via infected mosquitoes and can cause symptoms including fever, headaches and chills. It mostly affects children under 5 and pregnant women.
Vaccine efforts are still in early stages: Cameroon this year became the first country to routinely give children a new malaria vaccine, which is only about 30% effective and doesn’t stop transmission. A second vaccine was recently approved. On Thursday, WHO announced that three African countries — Benin, Liberia and Sierra Leone — were rolling out vaccine programs for millions of children.
Cases of resistance to antimalarial drugs and insecticides are increasing, while funding by governments and donors for innovation is slowing.
Living conditions play a role, with crowded neighborhoods, stagnant water, poor sanitation and lack of access to treatment and prevention materials all issues in many areas. And an invasive species of mosquito previously seen mostly in India and the Persian Gulf is a new concern.
A growing problem
Globally, malaria cases are on the rise. Infections increased from 233 million in 2019 to 249 million in 85 countries in 2022. Malaria deaths rose from 576,000 in 2019 to 608,000 in 2022, according to the World Health Organization.
Of the 12 countries that carry about 70% of the global burden of malaria, 11 are in Africa and the other is India. Children under 5 constituted 80% of the 580,000 malaria deaths recorded in Africa in 2022.
COVID-19 hurt progress
The fight against malaria saw some progress in areas such as rapid diagnostic tests, vaccines and new bed nets meant to counter insecticide resistance, but the COVID-19 pandemic and a shift in focus and funding set back efforts.
A study published in Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease last year said COVID-19-induced lockdowns led to disruptions at 30% of rural community health service points across Africa. Malaria cases started spiking again, breaking a downward trend between 2000 and 2019.
That downward trend could soon return, according to the WHO.
A warming world and new frontiers
Africa is “at the sharp end of climate change,” and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events causes havoc in efforts to combat malaria in low- and middle-income regions, Peter Sands, the executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, warned in December.
In 2023, the WHO’s World Malaria Report included a chapter on the link between malaria and climate change for the first time, highlighting its significance as a potential risk multiplier. Scientists worry that people living in areas once inhospitable to mosquitoes, including the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and the mountains of eastern Ethiopia, could be exposed.
In Zimbabwe, which has recorded some of its hottest days in decades, malaria transmission periods have extended in some districts, “and this shift has been attributed to climate change,” said Dr. Precious Andifasi, a WHO technical officer for malaria in Zimbabwe.
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SYDNEY — The Asian Development Bank holds its annual meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia, next week, with discussions on climate change and the world’s aging population high on the agenda.
The four-day summit, starting Thursday, marks the first time that the ADB’s 68 members have gathered for a meeting in Georgia, which joined the multilateral development bank in 2007.
“Georgia sits at the crossroads of Europe and Asia,” said Shalini Mittal, a principal economist for Asia at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
“This meeting signifies ADB’s agenda of bridges to the future where technology and expertise from the West can be used to enhance structural reforms in Asia,” Mittal told VOA.
Alongside numerous panel discussions and a keynote speech from ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa, finance ministers from Association of Southeast Asian Nations member countries Japan, China and South Korea will also meet on the sidelines.
“Given the geopolitical uncertainty with the Ukraine-Russia war and tensions in Asia with China’s problematic relations with its neighbors, I think the meeting is taking place at a crucial time,” said Jason Chung, a senior adviser with the Project on Prosperity and Development at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“It provides an additional path to have meaningful discussions on global economic issues,” Chung told VOA.
Climate change stressed
The issue of climate change is set to headline proceedings at the conference, with the ADB now marketing itself as the climate bank for the Asia-Pacific region.
The bank pledged a record $9.8 billion of climate finance in 2023, supporting developing countries to cut greenhouse emissions and adapt to extreme conditions as global warming continues.
“Storm surges, sea level rise, heat waves, droughts, and floods — all our countries suffer from all of the imaginable impacts of climate change,” said Warren Evans, who, as senior special adviser on climate change in the ADB president’s office, acts as the institution’s climate envoy.
The bank says that the Asia-Pacific region was hit by over 200 disasters last year alone, with many of them weather related, a problem that shows no sign of letting up.
“Right now, there’s a heatwave in Bangladesh that is causing severe impacts. Schools are closed, they’re seeing a drop in agricultural productivity, hospitals are getting overloaded with people with heatstroke,” Evans told VOA.
“Mortality rates are going up and, of course, women and children are the most vulnerable to those impacts,” he said.
While much of the Asia-Pacific region is extremely vulnerable to climate change, it is also a huge driver of the phenomenon.
The region contributes more than half of global carbon dioxide emissions, with a heavy reliance on coal as a source of energy, according to the ADB.
To try to reach net zero targets, many Asia-Pacific nations require huge investment to convert to clean energy alternatives.
One way that the ADB is tackling this issue is through a program targeting coal-burning power plants, a major contributor to emissions.
“With private sector partners and sovereign funding, we’re refinancing coal-fired power plants in order to be able to close them down early,” Evans said. The ADB’s “energy transition mechanism” uses private and public capital to refinance investments in coal-fired power, allowing power purchase agreements to be shortened and plants to be closed as much as a decade earlier than planned. The financing is also used to fund clean energy projects to generate the power that would have come from the coal plant.
The project looks to replace these plants with clean energy alternatives, ensuring that power is generated more sustainably.
A coal-burning power plant in Indonesia’s West Java is set to become the first to be retired early under the initiative.
“The communities that are impacted will have support, allowing people to find new jobs or to get social welfare,” Evans said.
Aging population in Asia
During the Tbilisi summit, the ADB will also launch a major report on aging population, which also affects member countries’ economies.
According to the bank, 1 in 4 people in the Asia-Pacific region will be over 60 by 2050, close to 1.3 billion people.
“The speed of aging is very quick in Asia, because of the rapid progress in the social development that has taken place in the region,” said Aiko Kikkawa, a senior economist for the ADB’s Aging Well in Asia report.
Researchers have investigated the implications of this demographic transition, with Kikkawa finding that the Asia-Pacific region is currently “unprepared” for aging populations.
“Large numbers of older people do report a substantial disease burden, lack of access to decent jobs or essential services, such as health and long-term care, and even lack of access to pension coverage,” Kikkawa told VOA.
The ADB has pledged to help to improve the lives of older people across the Asia-Pacific region, by supporting the rollout of universal health coverage and providing infrastructure for ‘age-friendly cities’ that are more accessible for older people.
Poverty to be addressed
While much of the focus in Tbilisi will be on climate change and aging populations, the ADB’s core edict remains to eradicate extreme poverty in its many developing country members.
That task has become even more challenging in an environment of high inflation and growing government debt.
However, Chung, the former U.S. director of the ADB, told VOA he believes that this goal should be at the center of discussions in the Georgian capital.
“The ADB should focus on its core mission of alleviating poverty and creating paths for economic growth in the developing member countries.
“While climate risk is important, I think given the state of uncertainty, it is important to provide support to create economic conditions for growth,” he told VOA.
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washington — About one-quarter of U.S. adults age 50 and older who are not yet retired say they expect to never retire, and 70% are concerned about prices rising faster than their income, an AARP survey finds.
About 1 in 4 have no retirement savings, according to research released Wednesday by the organization that shows how a graying America is worrying more and more about how to make ends meet even as economists and policymakers say the U.S. economy has all but achieved a soft landing after two years of record inflation.
Everyday expenses and housing costs, including rent and mortgage payments, are the biggest reasons why people are unable to save for retirement.
The data will matter this election year as Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump are trying to win support from older Americans, who traditionally turn out in high numbers, with their policy proposals.
Everyday expenses hamper saving
The AARP’s study, based on interviews completed with more than 8,000 people in coordination with the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, finds that one-third of older adults with credit card debt carry a balance of more than $10,000 and 12% have a balance of $20,000 or more. Additionally, 37% are worried about meeting basic living costs such as food and housing.
“Far too many people lack access to retirement savings options and this, coupled with higher prices, is making it increasingly hard for people to choose when to retire,” said Indira Venkateswaran, AARP’s senior vice president of research. “Everyday expenses continue to be the top barrier to saving more for retirement, and some older Americans say that they never expect to retire.”
The share of people 50 and older who say they do not expect to retire has remained steady. It was 23% in January 2022 and 24% that July, according to the study, which is conducted twice a year.
“We are seeing an expansion of older workers staying in the workforce,” said David John, senior strategic policy advisor at the AARP Public Policy Institute. He said this is in part because older workers “don’t have sufficient retirement savings. It’s a problem and its likely to continue as we go forward.”
In the AARP survey, 33% of respondents 50 and older believe their finances will be better in a year.
Based on the 2022 congressional elections, census data released Tuesday shows that voters 65 and older made up 30.4% of all voters, while Gen Z and millennials accounted for 11.7%.
Biden has tried to court older voters by regularly promoting a $35 price cap on insulin for people on Medicare. He trumpets Medicare’s powers to negotiate directly with drugmakers on the cost of prescription medications.
Trump, in an interview with CNBC in March, indicated he would be open to cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The former president said “there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting.”
Karoline Leavitt, press secretary for Trump’s campaign, said in a statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday that Trump “will continue to strongly protect Social Security and Medicare in his second term.”
Candidates court senior voters
A looming issue that will affect Americans’ ability to retire is the financial health of Social Security and Medicare.
The latest annual report from the program’s trustees says the financial safety nets for millions of older Americans will run short of money to pay full benefits within the next decade.
Medicare, the government-sponsored health insurance that covers 65 million older and disabled people, will be unable to pay full benefits for inpatient hospital visits and nursing home stays by 2031, the report forecast. And just two years later, Social Security will not have enough cash on hand to pay out full benefits to its 66 million retirees.
An AP-NORC poll from March 2023 found that most U.S. adults are opposed to proposals that would cut into Medicare or Social Security benefits, and a majority support raising taxes on the nation’s highest earners to keep Medicare running as is.
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Methane leaking from fossil fuel production is among the top contributors to climate change. Now a leading environmental scientist is hoping to provide more accurate and consistent findings of methane emissions with the launch of a technologically advanced satellite. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more. Arash Arabasadi contributed to this report. Camera: Adam Greenbaum
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COTONOU, Benin — Benin, Liberia and Sierra Leone launched large-scale malaria vaccine programs on Thursday under an Africa-focused initiative that hopes to save tens of thousands of children’s lives per year across Africa.
The three West African countries are the latest to participate after successful rollouts of routine malaria immunization for children in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, the global vaccine alliance GAVI said in a statement.
The World Health Organization-approved vaccine is meant to work alongside existing tools such as bed nets to combat malaria, which in Africa kills nearly half a million children under the age of 5 each year.
“This introduction … will help save lives and offer relief to families, communities and hard-pressed health systems,” said Aurelia Nguyen, GAVI chief program officer.
Benin has 215,900 doses of the vaccine, which will be available to children from around 5 months old, according to GAVI.
Sierra Leone has 550,000 doses and neighboring Liberia has 112,000 doses, it said.
At the official launch in Benin, which took place in the town of Allada, some 54 kilometers from the country’s largest city, Cotonou, 25 children received the vaccine.
“I came to have my children vaccinated against malaria. It’s important to me because when children get this malaria disease, we spend a lot of money,” said Victoire Fagbemi, a 41-year-old mother of four.
Another mother, Victoire Boko, who had her 10-month-old child vaccinated at the launch, said the health minister’s explanations about the vaccine in the local Fon language had allayed any anxieties she had about its safety. “When I get home, I will share the information … with my neighbors and friends,” she said on the sidelines of the launch.
The African region is home to 11 countries that carry approximately 70% of the global burden of malaria, according to GAVI.
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MIGORI, Kenya — As the coffin bearing the body of Rosebella Awuor was lowered into the grave, heart-wrenching sobs from mourners filled the air. Her sister Winnie Akinyi, the guardian to Awuor’s orphaned son, fell to the ground, wailing.
It was the latest of five deaths in this family attributed to malaria. The disease is common in Kenya, and it is preventable and curable, but poverty makes it deadly for those who can’t afford treatment.
In the family’s compound in the western county of Migori, three other graves are visible, that of Awuor’s husband and their other two children who died from malaria before age 2.
Awuor, 31, fell ill in December and lost her five-month pregnancy before succumbing to malaria. Her 11-year-old son is the family’s only survivor.
Malaria is still a significant public health challenge in Kenya, though some progress may be coming. Parts of Kenya participated in an important pilot of the world’s first malaria vaccine, with a reported drop in deaths for children under 5. Kenya’s health ministry hasn’t said when the vaccine will be widely available.
The biggest impact is felt in regions characterized by high temperatures like Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast, and places with high rainfall like the western region near Lake Victoria.
Kenya had an estimated 5 million malaria cases and more than 12,000 deaths reported in 2022, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO has declared April 25 as World Malaria Day.
Most of those affected are children under 5 and pregnant women.
New approaches needed
Kenya continues to combat malaria with traditional methods such as distributing bed nets that are treated with insecticides, spraying breeding areas, and promoting early diagnosis and treatment, but experts say progress against the disease with those approaches has plateaued.
Public health expert Dr. Willis Akhwale, special adviser for the Kenya End Malaria Council, said the COVID-19 pandemic slowed the distribution of drugs and treatment.
He said innovative treatment methods are needed in the wake of drug-resistant cases reported in parts of Africa.
“We need to start looking at investments in new-generation medicines. That should then be able to counter any resistance in [the] foreseeable future,” he said.
Akhwale said other needs include more funding and logistical support.
“In Kenya, the shortfall in terms of the need is almost $52 million, so we need to close that gap,” he said, citing health ministry data. He recommended domestic funding and private sector support amid donor fatigue with crises around the world.
Wilson Otieno has been admitted to a hospital three times for malaria and has received outpatient treatment countless times. It’s expensive for the 33-year-old accountant and father in the lakeside city of Kisumu.
Malaria is never “pocket friendly,” he said.
Some progress has been made with local manufacturing of crucial medication.
The Kenya-based Universal Corporation Limited last year received the WHO’s approval to produce an antimalarial drug known as Spaq, a combination of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine plus amodiaquine.
The approval was an important step in Africa’s capacity to make lifesaving medications, a new focus for governments and public health officials after vulnerabilities were exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Africa relies heavily on drug imports.
“It will really help in lowering the dependency for imports as we saw during the COVID era, where whatever was being imported actually had huge supply disruptions,” said Palu Dhanani, the founder and managing director of UCL.
If you don’t get the right medicine at the right time, malaria can cause unnecessary deaths, Dhanani said.
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Paris, France — World wine production dropped 10 percent last year, the biggest fall in more than six decades, because of “extreme” climate changes, the body that monitors the trade said Thursday.
“Extreme environmental conditions” including droughts, fires and other problems with climate were mostly to blame for the drastic fall, said the International Organization of Vine and Wine, or OIV, that covers nearly 50 wine-producing countries.
Australia and Italy suffered the worst, with 26 and 23 percent drops. Spain lost more than a fifth of its production. Harvests in Chile and South Africa were down by more than 10 percent.
The OIV said the global grape harvest was the worst since 1961, and worse even than its early estimates in November.
In further bad news for winemakers, customers drank 3 percent less wine in 2023, the French-based intergovernmental body said.
Director John Barker highlighted “drought, extreme heat and fires, as well as heavy rain causing flooding and fungal diseases across major northern and southern hemisphere wine-producing regions.”
Although he said climate problems were not solely to blame for the drastic fall, “The most important challenge that the sector faces is climate change.
“We know that the grapevine, as a long-lived plant cultivated in often vulnerable areas, is strongly affected by climate change,” he added.
France bucked the falling harvest trend, with a 4 percent rise, making it by far the world’s biggest wine producer.
Less wine being drunk
Wine consumption last year was, however, at its lowest level since 1996, confirming a fall off over the last five years, according to the figures.
The trend is partly due to price increases caused by inflation and a sharp fall in wine drinking in China — down a quarter — due to its economic slowdown.
The Portuguese, French and Italians remain the world’s biggest wine drinkers per capita.
Barker said the underlying decrease in consumption is being “driven by demographic and lifestyle changes. But given the very complicated influences on global demand at the moment,” it is difficult to know whether the fall will continue.
“What is clear is that inflation is the dominant factor affecting demand in 2023,” he said.
Land given over to growing grapes to eat or for wine fell for the third consecutive year to 7.2 million hectares.
But India became one of the global top 10 grape producers for the first time with a 3 percent rise in the size of its vineyards.
France, however, has been pruning its vineyards back slightly, with its government paying winemakers to pull up vines or to distill their grapes.
The collapse of the Italian harvest to its lowest level since 1950 does not necessarily mean there will be a similar contraction there, said Barker.
Between floods and hailstones, and damp weather causing mildew in the center and south of the country, the fall was “clearly linked to meteorological conditions,” he said.
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April 25 marks the global observance of World Malaria Day. Pakistan saw the world’s largest increase in malaria cases in 2022 following that year’s catastrophic flooding, according to the latest World Health Organization data. Experts say climate change was a factor. VOA’s Nazr Ul Islam’s visited a hospital in Islamabad and filed this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
Camera: Nazr Ul Islam
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new york — Russia blocked a U.N. Security Council resolution Wednesday reaffirming the need to prevent a nuclear arms race in outer space.
The measure was proposed jointly by the United States, a nuclear power, and Japan, the only nation ever to be attacked with nuclear bombs.
“We have only begun to understand the catastrophic ramifications of a nuclear explosion in space,” said U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield. “How it could destroy thousands of satellites operated by countries and companies around the world — and wipe out the vital communications, scientific, meteorological, agricultural, commercial and national security services we all depend on.”
The failed text recalled the responsibility of states to comply with the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which is the basic framework on international space law. It says outer space is to be shared among nations and shall be free of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. The treaty also says the moon and other celestial bodies “shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes,” and astronauts shall be “regarded as the envoys of mankind.”
The proposed resolution also called on states “not to develop nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction specifically designed to be placed in orbit around the Earth, or to be installed on celestial bodies, or to be stationed in outer space in any other manner.”
Thomas-Greenfield noted that President Vladimir Putin has said publicly that Russia has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space.
“And so, today’s veto begs the question: Why? Why, if you are following the rules, would you not support a resolution that reaffirms them?” she asked. “What could you possibly be hiding? It’s baffling, and it’s a shame.”
Thomas-Greenfield just returned from Japan, where she visited Nagasaki, a city on which the United States dropped one of two atomic bombs at the end of World War II.
“It was a reminder of our profound responsibility to prevent the scourge of war and ensure that no place experiences the horror of nuclear weaponry ever again,” she said.
“Adopting this draft resolution would have been a positive and practical contribution to the promotion of the peaceful use and exploration of outer space,” said Japanese Ambassador Kazuyuki Yamazaki. “If adopted, we could have demonstrated our unity in reaffirming the principle of no placement of any weapons of mass destruction in outer space and in opposing the development of such capabilities.”
The proposed resolution, which had more than 60 co-sponsors, created no new international obligations, but reaffirmed existing ones. It was supported by 13 of the 15 council members. After failing to get an amendment added to it, Russia vetoed it and China abstained.
“Today, our council is once again being involved in a dirty spectacle prepared by the U.S. and Japan,” Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said. “This is a cynical ploy. We are being tricked.”
He said Moscow wanted a text that would have gone further, banning weapons of any kind in outer space.
China’s new U.N. ambassador, Fu Cong, echoed that, saying the draft needed “other substantive elements.”
US concerns
In February, U.S. officials said Russia is developing a space-based weapon to attack satellites. They do not believe it would target people or cause destruction on Earth.
Analysts at the Washington-based Safe World Foundation think tank say on their website that Russia is most likely developing a system “that would use a nuclear explosion to create weapons effects, most likely an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), that would in turn disable or destroy satellites.”
There are thousands of satellites in space that run the gamut from sophisticated military purposes to running a car’s GPS or providing television programming.
Although the U.S. resolution was not adopted, Thomas-Greenfield said Washington would continue to pursue bilateral arms control discussions with Russia in good faith.
The U.S. also has concerns about China’s work in space, where officials say they are rapidly developing a range of counterspace weapons and using outer space to strengthen the capabilities of their military forces on Earth.
“Over the last six years they have tripled the number of intelligent surveillance and reconnaissance satellites in orbit, and they have used their space capabilities to improve the lethality, the precision and the range of their terrestrial forces,” said General Stephen Whiting, commander of the U.S. Space Command.
He spoke by phone to regional journalists Wednesday from Tokyo, where he is meeting with allies.
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