Tonga Prime Minister Akalisi Pohiva has called for China to write-off debts owed by Pacific island countries, warning that repayments impose a huge burden on the impoverished nations. Chinese aid in the Pacific has ballooned in recent years with much …
Hailstorms inflict billions of dollars’ worth of damage yearly in North America alone, and the cost will rise as the growing population builds more homes, offices and factories, climate and weather experts said Tuesday. The role of climate change in …
Nicaragua’s National Assembly on Tuesday approved a drastic cut to the national budget because of the economic impact of months of anti-government unrest. The lawmakers adopted a 9.2 percent reduction of the 2018 budget, projecting $180 million less in spending …
Last year, Brazilian farmer Gustavo Lopes sized up his sugar cane plantation against his soybean fields. He looked at global trends, including rising U.S.-China trade tensions and a stubborn sugar-market glut. Then he tore up the last of his cane …
Cuba’s government said it provided free internet to the Communist-run island’s more than 5 million cellphone users on Tuesday, in an eight-hour test before it launches sales of the service. Cuba is one of the Western Hemisphere’s least connected countries. …
The Democratic Republic of the Congo has started using the experimental mAb114 Ebola treatment to counter the latest flare-up of the virus, health officials said Tuesday, the first time it has been deployed against an active outbreak. Forty-two people are believed to have …
Tesla’s board named a special committee of three directors on Tuesday to evaluate possibly taking the electric carmaker private, although it said it had yet to see a firm offer from the company’s chief executive, Elon Musk. The Silicon Valley …
World Health Organization chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the raging conflict in North Kivu makes the Ebola outbreak in eastern DR Congo more dangerous than the historic 2014-2015 epidemic in West Africa. More than 11,000 people died from the Ebola …
Forty-one people have died in the latest outbreak of Ebola in DRC, health authorities said on Tuesday, adding that doctors were using a novel drug to treat patients. Out of 57 recorded cases as of Monday, 41 were fatal, the …
Vienna has dislodged Melbourne for the first time at the top of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Liveability Index, strengthening the Austrian capital’s claim to being the world’s most pleasant city to live in. The two metropolises have been neck …
Venezuela’s heavily subsidized domestic gasoline prices should rise to international levels to avoid billions of dollars in annual losses due to fuel smuggling, President Nicolas Maduro said in a televised address on Monday. “Gasoline must be sold at an international …
Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday his administration will invest more than $11 billion to boost refining capacity in order to curb growing fuel imports. Lopez Obrador, who will take office on Dec. 1, told reporters his …
Turkey’s currency, the lira, continues to slide as the country’s central bank failed to halt the decline Monday. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused the United States of purposely trying to damage his country’s economy. More from VOA’s Bill …
The world will soon have its first batch of commercially available 3-D-printed concrete homes. A consortium of the Dutch municipality of Eindhoven, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), and three private firms has joined forces to build five of these unique …
Animal-assisted therapy is a growing field that uses animals to help people recover from or better cope with health problems, such as heart disease, cancer and mental health disorders. While the most common therapy animal is dogs, the use of …
Tariffs imposed on goods imported from China, Europe and other parts of the world could hurt American consumers and small businesses more than help them. Analysts point out that in today’s global economy, most manufacturers produce parts and import others …
The world will soon have its first batch of commercially available 3D-printed concrete homes. A consortium of the Dutch municipality of Eindhoven, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), and three private firms has joined forces to build five of these unique …
Tesla’s handling of Chief Executive Elon Musk’s proposal to take the carmaker private and its failure to promptly file a formal disclosure has raised governance concerns and sparked questions about how companies use social media. Musk stunned investors last Tuesday …
You know your cholesterol, your blood pressure … your heart gene score? Researchers say a new way of analyzing genetic test data may one day help identify people at high risk of a youthful heart attack in time to help. …
The Turkish lira has fallen more than 40 percent since the start of the year, 20 percent just last week, amid rising tensions between the U.S. and Turkey, and international investors’ concerns over the economy. For Turkey, the dramatic collapse …
Lauren Woeher wonders if her 16-month-old daughter has been harmed by tap water contaminated with toxic industrial compounds used in products like nonstick cookware, carpets, firefighting foam and fast-food wrappers. Henry Betz, at 76, rattles around his house alone at …
Turkey’s central bank failed to halt the slide of the country’s lira currency on Monday as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the United States of purposely trying to damage his country’s economy. “We are together in NATO and then …
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Monday he was still in talks with potential backers of a possible buyout of the company, including Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, but had not completed securing the funding. In a blog post, …
A vessel carrying U.S. soybeans was unloading its cargo worth at least $23 million at the Chinese port of Dalian on Monday, becoming one of the first shipments to incur hefty new import duties as the trade row deepens between …