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Former NBA star Jeremy Lin, who plays for a Chinese team, was fined 10,000 yuan ($1,400) for “inappropriate remarks” on social media about quarantine facilities ahead of a game, China’s professional league announced Friday, as the government tries to stop protests against anti-virus controls that are among the world’s most stringent.

Also Friday, more cities eased restrictions, allowing shopping malls, supermarkets and other businesses to reopen following protests last weekend in Shanghai and other areas in which some crowds called for President Xi Jinping to resign. Urumqi in the northwest, site of a deadly fire that triggered the protests, announced supermarkets and other businesses were reopening.

Lin, who plays for the Loong Lions Basketball Club, made “inappropriate remarks about quarantine hotel-related facilities” where the team stayed Wednesday ahead of a game, the China Basketball Association announced. It said that “caused adverse effects on the league and the competition area.”

The ruling Communist Party is trying to crush criticism of the human cost and disruption of its “zero-COVID” strategy, which has confined millions of people to their homes. Protesters have been detained and photos and videos of events deleted from Chinese social media. Police fanned out across Shanghai, Beijing and other cities to try to prevent additional protests.

The CBA gave no details of Lin’s comments and there was no sign of them on his account on the popular Sina Weibo platform.

The Shanghai news outlet The Paper reported Lin posted a video complaining about hotel workout facilities in the city of Zhuji, south of Shanghai in Zhejiang province, ahead of games next week.

“Can you believe this is a weight room?” Lin was quoted as saying. “What kind of garbage is this?” The Paper said the video was deleted after “the situation was clarified” that the hotel was only for a brief stay required by regulations.

A representative of Vision China Entertainment, which says on its website it represents Lin, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Phone calls to Loong Lions Basketball Club headquarters in the southern city of Guangzhou weren’t answered.

Lin, born in California to parents from Taiwan, was the first NBA player of Chinese or Taiwanese descent.

He played for California’s Golden State Warriors in 2010 before joining the New York Knicks in the 2011-12 season. He became the first Asian American to win an NBA championship with the Toronto Raptors in 2019. He played for the Beijing Ducks in 2019 before joining the Loong Lions.

On Friday, there were no signs of more protests.

The government reported 34,980 infections found in the past 24 hours, including 30,702 with no symptoms.

China’s case numbers are low, but “zero-COVID” aims to isolate every infected person. That has led local officials to suspend access to neighborhoods and close schools, shops and offices. Manufacturers including the biggest iPhone factory in central China use “closed-loop” management, which requires employees to live at their workplace without outside contact.

Demonstrations erupted Nov. 25 after a fire in an Urumqi apartment building killed at least 10 people.

That set off angry questions online about whether firefighters or victims trying to escape were blocked by locked doors or other anti-virus controls. Authorities denied that, but the deaths became a focus of public frustration.

Xi’s government has promised to reduce the cost and disruption of controls but says it will stick with “zero-COVID.” Health experts and economists expect it so stay in place at least until mid-2023 and possibly into 2024 while millions of older people are vaccinated in preparation for lifting controls that keep most visitors out of China.

Urumqi will “further increase efforts to resume production and commerce” by reopening hotels, restaurants, large supermarkets and ski resorts, the official newspaper Guangming Daily reported on its website, citing Sui Rong, a member of the Municipal Committee.

Elsewhere, the northern city of Hohhot in the Inner Mongolia region restarted bus service and allowed restaurants and small businesses to reopen, according to state media. Jinzhou in the northeast lifted curbs on movement and allowed businesses to reopen.

On Thursday, the metropolis of Guangzhou in the south, the biggest hotspot in the latest infection spike, allowed supermarkets and restaurants to reopen.

Other major cities including Shijiazhuang in the north and Chengdu in the southwest restarted bus and subway service and allowed businesses to reopen.
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China’s rulers are accusing “hostile forces,” including foreigners, of inciting street demonstrations in more than three dozen Chinese cities and many more universities in the biggest domestic political challenge for Beijing since 1989’s Tiananmen Square protests.

At stake is the legitimacy of the ruling Chinese Communist Party as protesters question its management of the COVID-19 pandemic. The government has used repressive methods such as repetitive mass testing, quarantines, and lockdowns resulting in large-scale unemployment and economic loss.

Jolted, the government is handling the new situation cautiously. Though several instances of police violence have taken place, state repression has not reached the magnitude initially feared. The government is depending more on propaganda to evoke nationalistic sentiments and using politically divisive methods to address some of the problems highlighted by protesters, according to analysts.

“We must resolutely crack down on infiltration and sabotage activities by hostile forces in accordance with the law, resolutely crack down on illegal and criminal acts that disrupt social order and effectively maintain overall social stability,” the CCP’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission (CPLAC) said in a statement released Tuesday.

Bucknell University political scientist Zhiqun Zhu said the statement is a direct reference to foreign forces attempting to fan the flames of political unrest.

“The definitions of ‘infiltration’ and ‘sabotage activities’ are very broad. Even a foreign journalist reporting on site is viewed with suspicion,” Zhu told VOA. “Social media postings and commentaries on the protests are also considered adding fuel to the fire.

“In this context, foreigners offering critical comments about the protests or making contacts with protesters are easily blamed for instigating, shaping and guiding the demonstrations,” he said.

By blaming unrest on foreigners and foreign governments, analysts said, Beijing can whip up nationalist sentiments that weaken the protest movement.

An estimated 43 protests across 22 Chinese cities unfolded between Saturday and Monday, according to the Canberra-based Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and some analysts say the protests have since spread to more cities and towns.

China’s leadership is trying to meet some protest demands to lift COVID-19 requirements such as lockdowns, mass testing and quarantines, and several locked-down areas and restaurants in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou — a manufacturing hub hit hard by the latest COVID-19 outbreaks — reopened Wednesday.

“I believe that in the next few days most of the locked-down areas across China will be reopened,” Hu Xijin, former editor in chief of the Global Times and a strong Communist Party voice, said in a video statement on the paper’s website.

Hu indicated this would likely be done to maintain social stability. “As lockdowns are coming to an end, the biggest factor for public discontent will be eliminated. It will have a very positive effect on maintaining social stability,” he said.

Instead of using batons to keep protesters in line — a normal strategy for Chinese riot officers — police are busy identifying possible rebels and troublemakers and checking phones to find out whether they have been circulating protest images on virtual private networks and accessing banned sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Tuesday’s statement by CPLAC said agency officials had emphasized that “political and legal organs must take effective measures to … resolutely safeguard national security and social stability.”

Will protests persist?

Analysts differ on whether the protests — which are demanding democratic freedoms and an end to censorship — are likely to continue.

“It is unlikely that there will be more large-scale protests in the near future,” Zhu said. “New policies are being rolled out to loosen COVID-19 controls. It is also expected that the ‘zero-COVID’ policy will be replaced by more scientific and pragmatic measures,” he said.

Others disagree.

“More protests will emerge in different parts of China in the coming days, although the authorities may try to suppress them,” said Jagannath Panda, head of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific affairs at the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Sweden. “The Communist Party’s image has taken a severe beating because of widespread unemployment and the government’s repression.”

Salih Hudayar, an activist leader of the Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang, said China might even use the military to suppress the protest movement. The suppression of Uyghurs has drawn the attention of human rights activists and several foreign governments.

“The Chinese government has already started to crack down on the protests by intimidating protesters and arresting many of them,” said Hudayar, prime minister of the self-styled East Turkistan Government in Exile.

“Because there is not any meaningful political support from the international community, it’s highly likely that the Chinese government will use military force to suppress the protests in the coming weeks, if not days,” he said.
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In the highly conservative country of Pakistan, AIDS patients often face discrimination that keeps them from disclosing their diagnosis. Hundreds of HIV cases reported in Sindh Province in 2019 included children. That region was recently devastated by floods, making access to health care for HIV patients even more difficult. VOA’s Sidra Dar reports from Sindh Province, in this report narrated by Asadullah Khalid.
Camera: Muhammad Khalil
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As much of the world returned to some kind of new normal in 2022, China remains the only country sticking to a strict “zero-COVID” policy to control the spread of a global pandemic. While credited with saving lives, the policy slowed the economy, exacerbated supply-chain disruptions, cost millions of jobs, forced a large portion of Chinese residents into some form of lockdown for months, and is now, experts say, forcing Beijing’s leadership to seek a way out of a problem they don’t admit having.

Over the last weekend in November, protests against the zero-COVID policy erupted across China, the country where the virus was first identified in humans in late 2019 and where authorities in Wuhan, site of the initial outbreak, locked down millions of residents for most of the first four months of 2020.

That draconian step saved thousands of lives, according to Chinese figures, and since then many Chinese have compared the 6.6 million deaths worldwide to Beijing’s official count of just 15,986 deaths. The U.S. alone has lost more than 1.08 million people. Beijing’s policy emphasized “always putting the people and their lives above everything else,” according to a November 25 analysis in the official Xinhua news outlet.

‘We want freedom!’

But three years into zero-COVID, people fed up with being locked down are in the streets chanting “No PCR test, we want freedom!” “End the lockdowns!” “Step down, Communist Party!” Protests of this scale are rare because the Chinese Communist Party limits freedom of speech and association.

Under President Xi Jinping, whose increasingly authoritarian rule was extended for a historic third term in October, many citizens vent on social media, trying to stay ahead of censors.

“China at one point was one of the world leaders in COVID response, and now it’s the only country in the world that hasn’t gotten back to a near normal,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Washington’s Georgetown University and director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law.

“I think part of the reason for that is literally the stubbornness of Chinese leadership, and particularly Xi Jinping,” he told VOA Mandarin via phone.

Xi Chen, an associate professor of health policy and economics at the Yale School of Public Health, told VOA Mandarin in a phone interview that public outrage and economic impact indicate that China needs to make “a big adjustment in its public health policy.”

Medical experts inside China are making similar arguments. Dr. Zhang Wenhong, who heads Shanghai’s expert panel on COVID, said in a recent video circulating on the Chinese app WeChat that Beijing should consider relaxing its zero-COVID strategy soon.

“Look at the U.S., their cases are several times higher than us, yet their people are living their lives to the fullest. It’s time for us to adjust our policy, people should be able to relax and live a normal life, we as medical workers are the ones that should be prepared to face a rise in severe cases,” he said in the video, which China’s censors deleted soon after it appeared.

Georgetown’s Gostin said that through conversations with top epidemiologists in Hong Kong who advise Beijing on its COVID strategy, he believes that Xi understands that China needs to end its zero-COVID policy.

“But China is running out of time,” Gostin added.

Authorities commit to policy

Officially, Chinese leadership had shown little interest in ending zero-COVID before the end of last month.

On November 29, during the regular daily press briefing, a Reuters reporter in Beijing asked Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian, “Given the widespread display of anger and frustration at the zero-COVID policy in recent days across China, is China thinking about ending it and if so, when?”

Zhao, usually quick with an answer, looked at the papers on his podium for almost 20 seconds before asking the reporter to repeat his question. Zhao then paused for another 15 seconds before saying that China is following a “dynamic zero-COVID policy” and there is no public anger. 

His silence came after Xinhua issued commentaries on November 28, saying that while Beijing will do its best to accommodate the needs or desires of the people, it will stick to a “dynamic zero-COVID policy.”

“From newborn babies to centenarians, we won’t miss one infected case, we won’t give up on one patient,” one commentary said.

A day later, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who oversees China’s COVID containment efforts, urged further “optimization” of testing, treatment and quarantine policies, according to Reuters. The agency cited other officials saying that current restrictions, such as forcing people from their homes into quarantine centers if they test positive for the virus, would be implemented more flexibly to reflect local conditions.

Zero-COVID above all

Xi has staked his political reputation on the fight against COVID, and that continues to mean mass testing, snap lockdowns and extensive quarantines.

According to estimates by the Japanese investment bank Nomura, about 412 million people in China were in some kind of lockdown as of November 23. That accounts for almost a third of China’s total population and was up from 340 million the week before.

Shanghai, China’s most populous city and financial hub, experienced two months of strict lockdowns this spring, bringing business to a halt and severing key links in already disrupted regional and global supply chains. 

In November, with the number of cases increasing in Beijing, many residents in the country’s capital feared a similar lockdown as residents of other cities blamed the zero-COVID policy for tragedies.

Father says policy ‘indirectly killed’ his son

In the western city of Lanzhou, a 3-year-old boy died of carbon monoxide poisoning after COVID restrictions kept him from receiving medical care. His father told Reuters that the strict COVID-19 policies “indirectly killed” his son.

In China’s northern city of Hohhot, a 55-year-old woman committed suicide by jumping from the 12th floor, where she had been quarantined for two weeks. The woman was reported to have suffered from anxiety and was on anti-depression medication, sparking discussion about the impact on mental health from strict zero-COVID lockdowns.

The last straw was a fire in Urumqi on November 24 that killed at least 10 people and injured nine in a building with stringent lockdown protocols that that may have prevented victims from fleeing the flames. In a news briefing after the fire, Li Wensheng, head of the Urumqi City Fire Rescue department, said “the residents lacked the ability to rescue themselves.” 

“I think China’s zero-COVID strategy has been disastrous for the country in so many different ways,” said Gostin of Georgetown. “Most importantly it’s really been a huge violation of human rights: not just the lockdowns, but also the intrusive surveillance that we’ve seen of the entire population on their mobile phones.”

To enter any public space, all residents of China rely on a color-coded smart phone app that tracks exposure to infection. In June, media reports surfaced that authorities in Zhengzhou, the capital of central Henan province, were using the codes to restrict the movement of people heading to protest at local banks that had frozen their deposits.

An economy upended

Although the zero-COVID policy had nothing to do with the Zhengzhou bank run, it has slowed the country’s economic growth.

Previous official estimates said China’s economy would grow 5.5% in 2022. Now, the International Monetary Fund has lowered China’s economic growth projection for this year to 3.3%. The difference equals about $400 billion in lost GDP. 

“International trade and tourism have ground to a halt. Supply chains have been severely disrupted,” Gostin said. “And all in all, I think it’s actually reduced public trust in Xi Jinping, and it burst the bubble of so-called Chinese efficiency and effectiveness in policy.” 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, U.S. President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, said that he thinks China’s zero-COVID strategy “doesn’t make public health sense” on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on November 27.

“They went into a prolonged lockdown without any seeming purpose or endgame to it,” Fauci said.

Exit strategy

Unlike almost all other countries, a large percentage of China’s population lacks immunity because most people have not been infected with COVID. Without this so-called herd immunity, it may be difficult for China to extricate itself from its zero-COVID position.

The elderly are among the most vulnerable, but according to new statistics released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention on November 29, only 65.8% of people over the age of 80 have received booster shots, up from 40% as of November 11.

Chen of the Yale School of Public Health said there’s real concern among international experts about China’s ability to treat severe cases.

“There is no shortage of hospital beds in China. The number of hospital beds per 100,000 people is basically the same as that of the United States. But for intensive care unit beds, it’s a completely different story,” he said.

According to government statistics, there are 3.6 intensive care (ICU) beds per 100,000 people in China, compared to 11 in Singapore and 29.4 in the United States.

“This is China’s weakest point,” Chen said. “Once the country relaxes the zero-COVID strategy, there will inevitably be a proportion of severe cases. And there will be deaths considering the current ICU beds level.”

He added that as the country pours all its medical resources to COVID testing, there are few resources available for making these long-term preparations.

Shin-Ru Shih, director of the Research Center for Emerging Viral Infections at Taiwan’s Chang Gung University in Taiwan, said that even though the omicron variant has become less virulent, it is still a threat to Chinese people who have not been infected or vaccinated.

“The best way for China to fight against COVID and to reduce economic impact is vaccination by next-generation vaccines,” she said.

Gostin stressed that it’s particularly important to make sure that a large percentage of the vulnerable populations gets jabbed with effective vaccines and boosters, saying “that is the only way China can emerge from zero-COVID … without a considerable loss of life.”
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Cameroonian health workers and people with HIV marched for World AIDS Day on December 1, calling for access to treatment for patients in conflict areas.

About half a million Cameroonians have HIV, and at least 1,000 live in troubled western regions and the border with Nigeria. The protesters urged Cameroon’s military, separatists, and militants to allow all HIV patients access to needed treatment.

Marie Chantal Awoulbe, who belongs to the Cameroon Network of Adolescents and Positive Youths, which encourages those with AIDS to get regular treatment, took part in the protest and World AIDS Day activities at Chantal Biya International Research Centre in Yaounde. The center carries out research on AIDS, and supports programs to treat and support vulnerable people with HIV.

Awoulbe said her network is asking both armed groups and government troops to stop deaths among people with AIDS where there are armed conflicts by allowing the patients access to regular treatment.

Cameroon’s public health ministry says similar protests and activities to encourage free screening took place in 70 hospitals, with at least 30 hospital workers and people with AIDS taking part at each of the hospitals.

The Cameroon government accuses separatists in the country’s west of attacking hospitals and abducting health care workers. Activists also accuse government troops of attacking and arresting hospital staff suspected of treating civilians the military believes are either fighters or sympathize with separatists.

In April, medical aid group Doctors Without Borders suspended work in Cameroon’s troubled Southwest region to protest the rearrest of four of its staff members. Authorities accused the staffers of cooperating with regional separatists, but the organization denied it.

Medical staff members say intimidation and abduction of health workers, and ceaseless battles between government troops and separatist fighters make it impossible for medical supplies to reach the troubled English-speaking regions.

Twenty-eight-year-old Betrand Lemfon said he and several dozen people with AIDS moved from Jakiri, an English-speaking northwestern town, to Bafoussam, a French-speaking commercial city. He said he and others with the disease were afraid of dying in Jakiri because they did not have access to regular treatment.

“There are a lot of persons out there who are in need of medications, so if we could have the opportunity and chance for medications to always reach every interior part of the North-West region, South-West region who are hit by the crisis, it will help the adolescents, young persons and children living with HIV to take their ARVs [antiretroviral medicines] and stay healthy,” he said.

Lemfon spoke via the messaging app WhatsApp from Bafoussam.

Cameroon’s military says it will protect all health workers and civilians in the troubled regions.

The government says the number of people with the disease in Cameroon has decreased from about 970,000 in 2010 to 500,000 in 2021.

Health officials say the decline is due to increasing awareness of the disease and its consequences. The government says sexual behavior is changing, with the number of people using condoms or abstaining from sex increasing.

Honorine Tatah, a government official in charge of AIDS control in Cameroon, said unlike in 2020 when there was resistance due to lack of awareness, many more civilians now accept systematic screening for HIV.

“During antenatal care, a woman is screened for a number of diseases including hepatitis B, HIV and if you are tested positive, you are eligible for treatment and that treatment will reduce the chances of a child getting infected with HIV. The treatment is free of charge,” Tatah said.

World AIDS Day was the first international day for global health, starting in 1988. It allows people all over the world to join in the battle against HIV, to support those with HIV, and to remember those who have died from an AIDS-related illness.
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NASA’s uber-expensive test dummy moon mission exceeds expectations. Plus, a lunar flashlight’s frosty mission, and a state visit to NASA headquarters. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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In October, Zimbabwe became to first African country to approve the use of the injectable HIV prevention drug known as cabotegravir. As Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare, Zimbabwe, many are eager for the drug to become available. Videography by Blessing Chigwenhembe.
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A new, long-lasting drug could be a game-changer for preventing HIV infections, experts say.

Advocates are hopeful that those who need it most in low- and middle-income countries will not have to wait for it as long as they have for previous HIV drugs. But questions remain about access and price.

The drug is called cabotegravir and is delivered as a shot once every other month. In clinical trials, it did a better job at preventing infection than another option — a pill taken once a day.

The bimonthly injection seems to be an easier treatment regimen to stick to than daily pills, according to Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC, an HIV prevention advocacy organization.

“If you can take a pill every day, that’s great. But if you can’t, we see a lot of people who start [taking the pills] who don’t continue,” he said.

Aside from the inconvenience, there can be a stigma attached to taking the pills, Warren said. The drugs for prevention, called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, are the same as the drugs used to treat HIV infection.

“If you’re a young person and your parents find your pill bottle, they say, ‘Why are you taking this pill? Are you HIV infected?’ And the young person may say, ‘No, I’m protecting myself,'” Warren said. “And they say, ‘Well, why are you having sex?'”

Long-lasting drugs like cabotegravir or another new product, a once-a-month vaginal ring, offer patients more choices, he added.

About 1.5 million people were newly infected with HIV in 2021, according to the World Health Organization, about 60% of them in Africa.

Uganda and Zimbabwe approved cabotegravir for PrEP earlier this year. They are the first countries in sub-Saharan Africa to do so.

These approvals come less than a year after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized it.

That’s progress, Warren said. FDA approved PrEP pills in 2012, but “it took three years before any African regulatory agency approved it. So, we’ve already seen a condensing of that timeline.”

Cabotegravir costs $22,000 per year in the United States. ViiV Healthcare, the company that makes the drug, has not officially announced what it will cost in low- and middle-income countries, but it is expected to be much lower. Some aid groups have indicated that ViiV will offer the drug at $250 per year.

“The problem is that actually that won’t be really affordable for countries who need to roll it out and scale up,” said Jessica Burry, a pharmacist with humanitarian group Doctors without Borders.

PrEP pills cost about $54 per year, Warren said.

“The hope is that early in 2023, we can see a price point that is much closer to that 54 [dollars] than to the 250 [dollars],” he said. “Hopefully, in the $100 range per year.”

ViiV said it is working with the U.N.-backed Medicines Patent Pool to allow generic manufacturers to produce cabotegravir at a lower price for low- and middle-income countries.

ViiV said cabotegravir is more complicated to manufacture than most HIV drugs. No generic manufacturers have been selected yet. Once they are, it will take about three to five years before a generic version is on the market.

The company has filed for regulatory approval in 11 countries so far. Burry says there should be more.

“If they’re going to be the only supplier for the next four or five years until generics are available, then they really need to step up to the plate and actually file, register and get that drug available,” she said.

Demand for the drug is unclear. PrEP pills have been slow to catch on.

About 845,000 people in more than 50 countries took them in 2020, but the United Nations was aiming for 3 million by that time.

“We don’t have a ton of PrEP users, so if you’re ViiV, you’re looking at a very small market,” Warren said.

Warren said providers and advocates need to help grow that market. They need to do a better job connecting people at risk with programs that offer PrEP, he added.

“Some of the early PrEP programs began with us thinking that if you just bought the product, people would magically show up,” he said.

Warren hopes to change that as part of a coalition that includes ViiV, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization and others.

“There’s a huge effort in this coalition to bring in civil society from day one, and the communities that this product is meant to help and support,” he said.

The slow uptake means PrEP has not yet shown that it can make much of a real-world impact, Warren noted. He hopes to see research programs launch next year to find the best ways to reach the communities most at risk and lower infection rates.

“If we can’t show that in the next three years, then we don’t necessarily need all these generic manufacturers, because there will not be a market for this product,” he said.
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Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon slowed slightly last year, a year after setting a 15-year high, according to closely watched numbers published Wednesday. The data was released by the National Institute for Space Research.

The agency’s Prodes monitoring system shows the rainforest lost an area roughly the size of Qatar, about 11,600 square kilometers in the 12 months from August 2021 to July 2022.

That is down 11% compared with the previous year, when more than 13,000 square kilometers were destroyed.

For more than a decade deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon declined dramatically and never rose back above 10,000 square kilometers. Then came the presidency of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, beginning in January 2019.

This will be the last report published under Bolsonaro, who lost his reelection bid and will leave office January 1. But part of the destruction that took place on his watch will not appear until next year, including the key months from August to October 2022. A because it is the dry season.

An analysis of the new yearly data from Climate Observatory, a network of environmental groups, shows that in the four years of Bolsonaro’s leadership, deforestation rose 60% over the previous four years. That is the largest percentage rise under a presidency since satellite monitoring began in 1998.

In one state, Para, a fierce rate of destruction fell by 21% yet it was still the center of one-third of all Brazil’s Amazon forest loss. Part of the tree cutting and burning happens in areas that are ostensibly protected. One such area is Paru State Forest, where the nonprofit Amazon Institute of People and the Environment registered 2 square kilometers of deforestation in just October.

“In recent years, deforestation has reached protected areas where previously there was almost no destruction,” Jacqueline Pereira, a researcher with the Amazon Institute, told The Associated Press. “In Paru’s region, the destruction is driven by lease of land for soybean crops and cattle.”

Another critical area is the southern part of the state of Amazonas, the only state that increased deforestation in the most recent data, by 13% compared to the year before. It’s largely attributable to Bolsonaro’s push to pave about 400 kilometers of the only road that connects Manaus, home to 2.2 million people, with Brazil’s larger urban centers further south. Most Amazon deforestation occurs alongside roads where access is easier and land value is higher.

Researchers and environmentalists have blamed Bolsonaro’s policies for the surge in deforestation. The administration weakened environmental agencies and backed legislative measures to loosen land protections in the name of economic development, paired with a view of occupying a sparsely populated territory at any cost. This policy has emboldened land robbers and spurred more illegal mining.

Bolsonaro’s successor, leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, promised cheering crowds at the recent U.N. climate conference in Egypt to end all deforestation in the country by 2030.

“There will be no climate security if the Amazon isn’t protected,” he said.

The last time da Silva was president, from 2003 to 2010, deforestation fell sharply. On the other hand, he backed initiatives that set in motion destruction in the long run, such as the construction of the mammoth Belo Monte hydroelectric dam and generous loans to the beef industry. Chopping down forest for pasture is the primary driver of deforestation.

The Amazon rainforest, which covers an area twice the size of India, acts as a buffer against climate change by absorbing large amounts of carbon dioxide. It’s also the most biodiverse forest in the world, and the home of tribes that have lived in the forest for thousands of years, some of them living in isolation.

“If da Silva wants to decrease forest destruction by 2023, he must have zero tolerance for environmental crime from Day One of his administration. That includes holding accountable those who sabotaged environmental governance in the country while in office over the past four years,” said Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory.
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In South Africa, which has the world’s largest HIV-positive population, authorities say girls and young women are now the most at-risk demographic with many having resorted to transactional sex to pay the bills during COVID pandemic lockdowns.  Ahead of World Aids Day on Dec. 1, VOA spoke to a former sex worker and visited a clinic that treats adolescent girls and others with HIV. Kate Bartlett reports from Johannesburg, South Africa, on efforts to halt the spread. Camera: Zaheer Cassim 
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Malawi and the World Health Organization are rolling out a new malaria vaccine for young children that backers say will reduce deaths from the mosquito-borne disease.

The RTSS vaccine was pilot tested on more than one million children in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi and recommended a year ago by the WHO. Despite a low effectiveness rate of 30%, the vaccine has raised hopes that some of the more than 400,000 people who die annually from malaria can be saved. 

Malaria remains a huge public health problem in Malawi, with about one third of its 20 million people getting infected each year. 

According to the ministry of health, the disease kills five Malawians every day, most of them children under the age of five or pregnant women who were not presented early enough for care.  

The health ministry says the first phase of the vaccination campaign will target 330,000 children, who were not reached during vaccine trials. 

The vaccine, sold by GlaxoSmithKline as Mosquirix, is meant for children under the age of five and requires four doses. 

“Malaria is major problem in children. They are the ones at highest risk of dying,” said Dr. Charles Mwansambo, Malawi’s secretary for health. “That’s why even when we were doing the earlier studies, we found that once we get maximum benefit, we should target this age group. The main reason is that they are the ones that are most likely to die from malaria.” 

Last year, the government launched a nationwide anti-malaria initiative known as Zero Malaria Starts with Me, aimed at eliminating the disease by 2030. 

Mwansambo said the vaccine is a key part of that initiative. 

“It actually prevents about 33 percent of deaths. Meaning that if you add the 33 to those that we can prevent using insecticide treated nets, if will also add on those [we can] prevent by indoor residual spraying, it [can] add up to something significant that will end up eliminating malaria,” he said. 

However, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, backers of the vaccine, have raised concerns about whether the vaccine is worth the cost. 

In July, the Associated Press quoted Philip Welkhoff, director of malaria programs for the Gates Foundation, as saying the foundation will no longer offer direct financial support for the vaccine, although it will fund an alliance backing the vaccine. 

He said Mosquirix has much lower efficacy than the foundation would like and that the vaccine is relatively expensive and logistically challenging to deliver. 

Dr. Neema Kimambo, a WHO representative in Malawi, said the malaria vaccine itself is not a silver bullet but part of a combination of all interventions to fight the disease. 

“Where it [vaccination] was done, we have seen how it has reduced under-five deaths and we believe that as we expand now, we are definitely to save more lives of children under five,” she said. 

Maziko Matemba, a health activist and community health ambassador in Malawi, said he hopes the malaria vaccine efficacy will improve as time goes by. 

“I have an example with COVID-19. When we had AstraZeneca, the efficacy when it started — as you know it was also a new vaccine — it was less that certain percentage and people said no it was less than this. But over time, we found that the efficacy has gone up,” Matemba said. “So we are monitoring the launch of this new vaccine with keen interest.

“I know that other partners are saying the worthiness of investment is not worth it, but looking at the way we are coming from, Malawi in particular, this could be one of the tools to prevent malaria.” 

Besides WHO, other partners supporting Malawi in the fight against malaria include USAID, UNICEF, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and a global health nonprofit organization, PATH. 

 
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Three Chinese astronauts arrived Wednesday at the country’s space station as part of a six-month mission that includes the station’s first in-orbit crew rotation.

The astronauts are replacing three others who have been at the Tiangong station since early June.

China docked the last of the station’s three modules earlier this month and astronauts are working on the final phases of the construction process.

China plans to launch a powerful space telescope next year.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
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The Biden administration declared the northern long-eared bat endangered on Tuesday in a last-ditch effort to save a species driven to the brink of extinction by white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease.

“White-nose syndrome is decimating cave-dwelling bat species like the northern long-eared bat at unprecedented rates,” said Martha Williams, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The agency is “deeply committed to working with partners on a balanced approach that reduces the impacts of disease and protects the survivors to recover northern long-eared bat populations,” she said.

First documented in the U.S. in 2006, the disease has infected 12 types of bats and killed millions. The northern long-eared bat is among the hardest hit, with estimated declines of 97% or higher in affected populations. The bat is found in 37 eastern and north-central states, plus Washington, D.C., and much of Canada.

Named for white, fuzzy spots that appear on infected bats, white-nose syndrome attacks bats’ wings, muzzles and ears when they hibernate in caves and abandoned mines.

It causes them to wake early from hibernation and to sometimes fly outside. They can burn up their winter fat stores and eventually starve.

The disease has spread across nearly 80% of the geographical range where northern long-eared bats live and is expected to cover it all by 2025.

Little brown bat also suffering

Another species ravaged by the fungus is the tricolored bat, which the government proposed to classify as endangered in September. A third, the little brown bat, is being evaluated for a potential listing.

Bats are believed to give U.S. agriculture an annual boost of $3 billion by gobbling pests and pollinating some plants.

The Fish and Wildlife Service designated the northern long-eared bat as threatened in 2015. With its situation increasingly dire, the agency proposed an endangered listing in March and considered public comments before deciding to proceed. The reclassification takes effect January 30, 2023.

“This species is in dire straits, but we never want to give up hope,” said Winifred Frick, chief scientist with Bat Conservation International, a nonprofit group. “We can do amazing things when we work hard and have legal protections in place to protect these small colonies that are left.”

In many cases, the service identifies “critical habitat” areas considered particularly important for the survival of an endangered species. Officials decided against doing so for the northern long-eared bat because habitat loss isn’t the primary reason for its decline, spokeswoman Georgia Parham said. Calling attention to their winter hibernation spots could make things worse, she added.

Recovery efforts will focus on wooded areas where the bats roost in summer — usually alone or in small groups, nestling beneath bark or in tree cavities and crevices. Emerging at dusk, they feed on moths, beetles and other insects.

Under the Endangered Species Act, federal agencies are required to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service to be sure projects that they fund or authorize — such as timber harvests, prescribed fires and highway construction — will not jeopardize a listed species’ existence.

For nonfederal landowners, actions that could result in unintentional kills could be allowed but will require permits.

Turbines also a threat

The Fish and Wildlife Service said it will also work with wind energy companies to reduce the likelihood that bats will strike turbines. These collisions are currently a threat in roughly half of the northern long-eared bat’s range, an area likely to grow as wind energy development expands.

The service has approved nearly two dozen plans allowing wind energy and forestry projects to proceed after steps were taken to make them more bat-friendly, said Karen Herrington, Midwest regional coordinator for threatened and endangered species.

Operators can limit the danger by curtailing blade rotation during bats’ migration season and when winds are low.

Research continues for methods to fight white-nose syndrome, including development of a vaccine. The service has distributed more than $46 million for the campaign, which involves around 150 agencies, private organizations and Native American tribes.

“We have to find a cure for white-nose syndrome that is killing our bats and we have to protect the forests where they live,” said Ryan Shannon, senior attorney at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. “This endangered listing will help on both counts.”
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In a filthy alley behind a Los Angeles doughnut shop, Ryan Smith convulsed in the grips of a fentanyl high — lurching from moments of slumber to bouts of violent shivering on a warm summer day. 

When Brandice Josey, another homeless addict, bent down and blew a puff of fentanyl smoke his way in an act of charity, Smith sat up and slowly opened his lip to inhale the vapor as if it was the cure to his problems. 

Smith, wearing a grimy yellow T-shirt that said “Good Vibes Only,” reclined on his backpack and dozed the rest of the afternoon on the asphalt, unperturbed by the stench of rotting food and human waste that permeated the air. 

For too many people strung out on the drug, the sleep that follows a fentanyl hit is permanent. The highly addictive and potentially lethal drug has become a scourge across America and is taking a toll on the growing number of people living on the streets of Los Angeles. 

Nearly 2,000 homeless people died in the city from April 2020 to March 2021, a 56% increase from the previous year, according to a report released by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Overdose was the leading cause of death, killing more than 700. 

Fentanyl was developed to treat intense pain from ailments like cancer. Use of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that is cheap to produce and is often sold as is or laced in other drugs, has exploded. Because it’s 50 times more potent than heroin, even a small dose can be fatal. 

It has quickly become the deadliest drug in the nation, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Two-thirds of the 107,000 overdose deaths in 2021 were attributed to synthetic opioids like fentanyl, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. 

The drug’s toll spreads far beyond the streets. 

Jennifer Catano, 27, has the names of two children tattooed on her wrists, but she hasn’t seen them for several years. They live with her mother. 

She has overdosed three times and been through rehab seven or eight times. 

“It’s scary to get off of it,” she said. “The withdrawals are really bad.” 

Catano wandered around a subway station near MacArthur Park desperate to sell a bottle of Downy fabric softener and a Coleman camping chair she stole from a nearby store. 

Drug abuse can be a cause or symptom of homelessness. Both can also intersect with mental illness. 

A 2019 report by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority found about a quarter of all homeless adults in Los Angeles County had mental illnesses and 14% had a substance use disorder. That analysis only counted people who had a permanent or long-term severe condition. Taking a broader interpretation of the same data, the Los Angeles Times found about 51% had mental illnesses and 46% had substance use disorders. 

Billions of dollars are being spent to alleviate homelessness in California, but treatment is not always funded. 

A controversial bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom could improve that by forcing people suffering from severe mental illness into treatment. But they need to be diagnosed with a certain disorder such as schizophrenia and addiction alone doesn’t qualify. 

Help is available but it is outpaced by the magnitude of misery on the streets. 

Rita Richardson, a field supervisor with LA Door, a city addiction-prevention program that works with people convicted of misdemeanors, hands out socks, water, condoms, snacks, clean needles and flyers at the same hotspots Monday through Friday. She hopes the consistency of her visits will encourage people to get help. 

“Then hopefully the light bulb comes on. It might not happen this year. It might not happen next year. It might take several years,” said Richardson, a former homeless addict. “My goal is to take them from the dark to the light.” 

 
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Twitter has rolled back a policy that was aimed at tackling misinformation related to COVID-19 on the social media platform, lending itself to the risk of a potential surge in false claims even as cases rise in China and some parts of the world.

The move also comes amid concerns of Twitter’s ability to fight misinformation after it let go about half of its staff, including those involved in content moderation, under new boss Elon Musk.

“Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy,” according to an update on its blog page. The update was first reported by CNN on Tuesday.

The specific measures that Twitter will drop were not immediately clear, and the company did not immediately respond to a request to share more information.

At the onset of COVID in 2020, Twitter instated a number of measures including labels and warning messages on tweets with disputed information about the health crisis and a framework to have users remove tweets that advanced harmfully false claims related to vaccines.

Meta Platforms Inc-owned META.O Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s GOOGL.O YouTube services employed similar measures, which are currently in place.

Early this year, Twitter said that since March 2021 it had stopped enforcing a “civic integrity policy” related to lies about the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Billionaire Musk took over Twitter on Oct. 27, paying $44 billion for the company, and has moved quickly to initiate a number of changes to product and staff. Musk said on Oct. 29 he would set up a content moderation council with “widely diverse viewpoints.
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The World Health Organization has renamed monkeypox as mpox, citing concerns the original name of the decades-old animal disease could be construed as discriminatory and racist.

The U.N. health agency said in a statement Monday that mpox was its new preferred name for monkeypox, saying that both monkeypox and mpox would be used for the next year while the old name is phased out.

WHO said it was concerned by the “racist and stigmatizing language” that arose after monkeypox spread to more than 100 countries. It said numerous individuals and countries asked the organization “to propose a way forward to change the name.”

In August, WHO began consulting experts about renaming the disease, shortly after the U.N. agency declared monkeypox’s spread to be a global emergency.

To date, there have been more than 80,000 cases identified in dozens of countries that had not previously reported the smallpox-related disease. Until May, monkeypox, a disease that is thought to originate in animals, was not known to trigger large outbreaks beyond central and west Africa.

The 10 most affected countries globally are: the United States (29,001), Brazil (9,905), Spain (7,405), France (4,107), Colombia (3,803), Britain (3,720), Germany (3,672), Peru (3,444), Mexico (3,292), and Canada (1,449). They account for 86% of the global number of cases, Agence France-Presse reported.

Outside of Africa, nearly all cases have been in gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men. Scientists believe monkeypox triggered outbreaks in Western countries after spreading via sex at two raves in Belgium and Spain. Vaccination efforts in rich countries, along with targeted control interventions, have mostly brought the disease under control after it peaked in the summer.

In Africa, the disease mainly affects people in contact with infected animals such as rodents and squirrels. The majority of monkeypox-related deaths have been in Africa, where there have been almost no vaccines available.

U.S. health officials have warned it may be impossible to eliminate the disease there, warning it could be a continuing threat mainly for gay and bisexual men for years to come.

Mpox was first named monkeypox in 1958 when research monkeys in Denmark were observed to have a “pox-like” disease, although they are not thought to be the disease’s animal reservoir.

Although WHO has named numerous new diseases shortly after they emerged, including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS and COVID-19, this appears to be the first time the agency has attempted to rechristen a disease decades after it was first named.

Numerous other diseases, including Japanese encephalitis, German measles, Marburg virus and Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome have been named after geographic regions, which could now be considered prejudicial. WHO has not suggested changing any of those names.
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Children in school uniforms and toddlers with their parents lined up Monday for polio vaccinations in the Sigli town square on the northern tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, after four children were found infected with the highly contagious disease that was declared eliminated in the country less than a decade ago. 

The virus was first detected in October in a 7-year-old boy suffering from partial paralysis in the province of Aceh near Sigli, and since then three other cases have been detected, prompting the mass immunization and information drive. 

Officials say that polio immunization rates in the conservative province are well behind the rest of the country, with efforts hampered by widespread disinformation the vaccine is incompatible with religious beliefs, among other things. The government has also been prioritizing COVID-19 vaccinations since they became available. 

The campaign that started Monday aims to vaccinate some 1.2 million children in the province, said Maxi Rein Rondonuwu, the Health Ministry’s director general for disease control and prevention. 

“There is no cure for polio, the only treatment is prevention and the tool for prevention is vaccination,” Rondonuwu said, adding that the child is still able to walk, albeit with a limp. 

With some 275 million people, Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous, and the largest Muslim-majority nation. 

Aceh is particularly conservative, and is Indonesia’s only province allowed to practice Shariah, which was a concession made by the national government in 2006 to end a war with separatists. 

False rumors that the polio vaccine contains pork or alcohol, prohibited according to Muslim beliefs, have proliferated, especially in rural areas, complicating vaccination efforts, said the head of the Aceh Health Office, Hanif, who only goes by one name like many Indonesians. 

“We cannot work alone, we need support from all parties, including religious leaders, so that people understand the importance of immunization,” said Hanif. 

Azhar, the father of the 7-year-old who contracted polio, said he had opted not to immunize his son after other villagers where he lived told him the vaccines may cause harmful chemicals or non-halal substances. 

“My neighbors said that my son doesn’t need to be immunized and I didn’t want my son get sick because of harmful chemicals that are against Islam,” the 45-year-old said. 

For Dewi Safitri, a mother of three who was getting them vaccinated on Monday, it was simply a matter of not knowing it was necessary. 

She said she was convinced after health workers spelled out the risks of paralysis or death if her children were to go unvaccinated. 

“I didn’t even know about immunization,” she said. 

The World Health Assembly adopted a resolution for the global eradication of polio in 1988 and since then, wild poliovirus cases have decreased by more than 99%, according to the World Health Organization. 

It was eliminated in Indonesia in 2014 and is today only still endemic in two countries — Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Polio primarily affects children under the age of 5, according to the WHO. Unvaccinated people of any age can contract the disease, however, and sporadic cases continue to crop up. 

In September in New York, for example, the state stepped up its polio-fighting efforts after the disease was detected in the wastewater in the New York City area. 

Officials began checking for signs of the virus there after the first case of polio in the United States was identified in July in Rockland County, which is north of the city. It was confirmed in a young adult who was unvaccinated. 

The statewide polio vaccination rate is 79% but Rockland’s rate was lower, and New York health officials urged all unvaccinated residents, including children by 2 months of age, to get vaccinated immediately. 

Last week, new poliovirus cases were found in Afghanistan, Algeria, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Nigeria, according to the WHO’s Global Polio Eradication Initiative. 

Of the three other children in Indonesia from the same village as the initially confirmed case none had their basic vaccinations, Rondonuwu said. 

“It has to be reported as an outbreak, because it had been declared eradicated in Indonesia, but it turns out that there is still wild polio virus,” he said. 

Rondonuwu said his ministry is keeping a close watch on the cases by doing door-to-door screening to ensure that there are no additional infections that have not been reported. 

The polio virus is transmitted person-to-person, generally through the “fecal-oral” route, according to the WHO. In Indonesia, authorities have also pointed to unsanitary conditions as a probable cause of the new infections after finding out that some local residents still defecate directly into a river where children are often found playing. 

Across Indonesia, polio vaccination coverage has been slipping since the outbreak of COVID-19. Despite the challenges of reaching people in the archipelago nation of five main islands and thousands of smaller ones, 73.4% of Indonesians are now fully vaccinated for COVID-19 and 87.5% have at least one shot. 

For polio, 86.8% of babies were vaccinated in their first year in 2020 nationwide, which fell to 80.7% in 2021 as the country was forced to focus most of its health facilities and workers on addressing the pandemic. 

By comparison, only 50.9% of the infants born in Aceh in 2021 received a polio vaccination. It was the second lowest on a national scale after West Papua, where only 43.4% of babies were vaccinated. 

The nationwide decline was part of a broader drop in basic immunizations, such as for measles and rubella, according to UNICEF. 

Dicky Budiman, an Indonesian epidemiologist from Australia’s Griffith University, said the discovery of polio in Aceh must be responded to seriously because “the threat is real for Indonesia,” noting that basic immunization coverage is still low, putting the country in a high-risk category. 

“This is what the government really has to pursue, because it’s dangerous if we don’t,” Budiman said. 

“We must move immediately by strengthening basic immunization or there will be a potential additional health disaster for Indonesia.” 

 
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