Scientists say due to indiscriminate use of antibiotics, for treating even minor infections, many bacteria have developed strong immunity against this type of drug. In their words, we may have already entered the ‘post-antibiotic era,’ with previously non-life-threatening infections becoming fatal. Researchers at Rockefeller University in New York say an enzyme called lysin may prove to be crucial in this new battle against infection. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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Some 640,000 tons of lost fishing gear pollute the world’s oceans, according to the United Nations. Slow to break down, these so-called “ghost nets” take a huge toll on sea creatures from tiny sponges to dolphins, turtles and whales. A group of volunteer divers is working to clean up sea floors and draw attention to the damage these ghost nets do. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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A spike in suicide rates in the United States has cast fresh light on the need for more effective treatments for major depression, with researchers
saying it is a tricky development area that has largely been abandoned by big pharmaceutical companies.
U.S. health authorities said this week that there had been a sharp rise in suicide rates across the country since the beginning of the century and called for a comprehensive approach to addressing depression. The report was issued the same week as the high-profile suicides of celebrities Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade.
Reuters was not able to determine whether either Bourdain or Spade were getting drug treatment. Representatives could not immediately be reached for comment.
Kate Spade’s husband, Andy Spade, said in a statement this week that she had suffered from depression for many years and was working closely with her doctors.
With the availability of numerous cheap generic antidepressants, many of which offer only marginal benefit, developing medicines for depression is a tough sell.
Far more cancer drugs
Drugmakers have 140 therapies in development targeting mental health issues, including 39 aimed at depression, according to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America trade group. That compares with the industry’s work on 1,100 experimental cancer drugs, which can command some of the highest prices.
“Psychiatry has become a disfavored area for investment,” said Harry Tracy, whose newsletter, NeuroPerspective, tracks developments in drug treatments for psychiatric problems. “Insurers say, ‘Why should we pay more for a new treatment?’ ”
Some say anti-depressant drugs take too long to become effective, if they are effective at all. About half of people with depression fail to respond to current therapies, said Dr. Husseini Manji, global head of neuroscience at Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen unit.
Developing antidepressants is risky. Patients in clinical trials often show a big placebo response, masking the efficacy of the drug being tested. In addition, once approved, antidepressants require a large sales force to reach
psychiatrists as well as primary care providers.
Another impediment is the difficulty of conducting early depression research on animals that could form a basis for trials in people.
“This has been a big challenge to translate over to human clinical trials,” said Caroline Ko, project leader of NewCures, a newly formed program at Northwestern University aimed at reducing the risk of investment in treatments for depression, pain, Parkinson’s and other diseases.
Lone major player: Johnson & Johnson
J&J is the only large pharmaceutical company making a major investment in a new antidepressant, Tracy said. Smaller players include Sage Therapeutics, which expects a decision from U.S. regulators on a treatment for post-partum depression by the end of the year.
J&J’s esketamine targets treatment-resistant depression. It is similar to ketamine, which is used as an anesthetic and to relieve pain, and often is abused as a recreational party drug with the street nickname Special K.
The company expects to file for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of esketamine, a rapid-acting nasal spray, this year.
“Standard antidepressants can take weeks to work. They really are not useful in a crisis situation,” said Carla Canuso, who is leading J&J’s effort testing the drug in people deemed at imminent risk for suicide, which is most commonly associated with depression.
Allergan Plc is developing rapastinel, a fast-acting intravenous antidepressant the company purchased in 2015. The drug has breakthrough therapy designation from the FDA, with clinical trial results expected in early 2019. Last month, the company acquired another depression drug from its
collaborator, Aptinyx.
Dr. Julie Goldstein Grumet, a behavioral health expert from the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, said 122 people in the United States took their lives by suicide each day last week. Many were never even diagnosed with a mental illness.
“We’re missing opportunities to screen people for the risk of suicide,” she said.
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Health officials say a salmonella outbreak linked to pre-cut melon has sickened 60 people in five Midwestern states.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Caito Foods LLC on Friday recalled pre-cut watermelon, honeydew melon, cantaloupe and fruit medleys containing at least one of those melons that were produced at its facility in Indianapolis.
It said the five states where people were sickened were Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri and Ohio. The CDC said the fruit was also distributed to stores in Georgia, Kentucky and North Carolina. It was sold in clear plastic clamshell containers at Costco, Jay C, Kroger, Payless, Owen’s, Sprouts, Trader Joe’s, Walgreens, Walmart and Whole Foods/Amazon.
Officials said people should throw away or return recalled products.
The CDC said 31 of the people sickened had been hospitalized, but that there had been no deaths reported. Those sickened often develop diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps 12 to 72 hours after eating the contaminated food. The illness often lasts four to seven days.
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Prime Minister Theresa May will gather together squabbling British ministers at her country residence after this month’s European Union summit
to settle on details of a much-anticipated Brexit policy paper.
May has yet to agree on some of the fundamental details of what type of trading relationship she wants to have with the European Union after Britain leaves next March. As a result, talks with the EU have all but ground to a halt, raising fears among businesses and in Brussels that Britain could end up crashing out of the bloc without an agreed-upon deal.
“There’s going to be a lot happening over the next few weeks. You know, people want us to get on with it, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” May told reporters on her way to a G-7 summit in Canada.
May will look to the June 28-29 EU summit as a chance to pin down some of the most troublesome details of Britain’s exit agreement and pave the way for more intensive talks on the all-important future economic partnership between the world’s fifth-largest economy and the world’s biggest trading bloc.
But senior ministers are still at odds about what type of post-Brexit customs arrangement will be best for Britain, meaning talks on the future are unlikely to move far in June.
Before leaving for Canada, May was forced into crisis talks with her Brexit minister who had challenged her so-called backstop plan to ensure no hard border on the island of Ireland.
Then her foreign minister, Boris Johnson, was recorded saying there could be a Brexit meltdown.
‘Away day’
With that in mind, May said she was planning to summon ministers to Chequers, her country residence, for an “away day” aimed at ending months of squabbling and agreeing upon the contents of a so-called “white paper” policy document.
The white paper is expected to set out in more detail what Britain wants from its long-term relationship with the EU. May did not give a firm date for when it would be published.
Ministers had said it would be published before the June EU summit, suggesting rows had helped delay the paper.
Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labor Party, criticized the delay. “The government promised a ‘detailed, ambitious and precise’ Brexit white paper this month setting out their negotiating priorities. Once again it’s been postponed. The Tories are botching Brexit and risking jobs and our economy in the process,” he said in an emailed statement.
May said her government and the EU were still working toward an October deadline in talks to secure an agreement on the terms of Britain’s withdrawal and an outline of the future partnership.
“We’re all, both we and the European Union, working to that timetable of October,” May said. “From my point of view, what we’re doing is working to develop that future relationship, because there’s a big prize for the U.K. here at the end of this.”
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More people are committing suicide than ever before, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports, but suicide isn’t uniquely an American issue. The World Health Organization estimates that every 40 seconds, someone in the world ends his or her life.
Experts say the key to preventing suicide is to get help early and to reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness and suicide.
Dorothy Paugh was 9 years old when her father took his life.
“I count that day as the last day of my childhood,” she said, “because from that moment on, I had no sense of security.”
Paugh’s father is buried at Arlington Cemetery, a place reserved for war heroes.
“It’s important to me that people not label those who die by suicide as cowards,” she said, “because my father was brave. He fought in World War II and … I think he just got overwhelmed.”
Nearly 50 years later, Dorothy Paugh’s life was shaken again by yet another suicide.
“I lost my son in 2012,” she said.
“This is my favorite picture of Peter because he has a hint of a smile. It’s so understated, but he has piercing blue eyes. He’s paying attention. He’s looking at the world with love, I think.”
Each year, some 800,000 people worldwide die as a result of suicide — and that number does not include the countless others who attempt it. The World Health Organization says this translates to one self-inflicted death every 40 seconds. But the impact on families, societies and communities is far greater.
“The ripple effect is enormous,” Paugh said. My son’s “brothers, his girlfriend, myself, his father. It’s a shock that takes years to recover … to find footing again.”
Yet, experts say suicide can be prevented if governments create policies to prevent alcohol and drug abuse, make guns safer, reduce the stigma of suicide, and provide support for those suffering from depression and diseases that cause depression.
Paul Gionfrieddo, who heads Mental Health America, became an advocate for early treatment when his son developed a mental illness.
“Suicide is the ultimate stage four event for a lot of people who have serious mental illnesses and, frankly, it’s the ultimate stage four, late-stage event for a lot of people with other kinds of chronic diseases as well, too, who might not have had a mental illness,” Gionfrieddo said.
Because of her experience, Paugh became an advocate for suicide prevention.
“If we think someone may be troubled, ask them outright if they are having thoughts of suicide,” Paugh said. “It’s not a comfortable conversation, but it’s a lot more comfortable than a funeral. That’s my hope and my purpose in speaking about suicide — so people know it is preventable.”
Mental health experts say mental health screening would help people get into treatment before their depression becomes severe. Other recommendations include reducing the social stigma associated with mental illness and making treatment more widely available.
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U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday that he had instructed his representatives not to sign a communique by all seven leaders attending the G-7 summit in Canada, citing statements by Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made after he left.
“Very dishonest and & weak,” Trump tweeted in response to Trudeau’s remark that the new U.S. tariffs on aluminum and steel were “insulting.”
“Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers, and companies, I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market!” Trump added.
Retaliatory measures
Trudeau closed the summit Saturday by refusing to budge on positions that place him at odds with Trump, particularly new tariffs on steel and aluminum that have irritated Canada and the European Union.
He said in closing remarks that Canada would proceed with retaliatory measures on U.S. goods as early as July 1.
“I highlighted directly to the president that Canadians did not take it lightly that the United States has moved forward with significant tariffs,” Trudeau said in the news conference following the two-day summit. “Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we will also not be pushed around.”
British Prime Minister Theresa May echoed Trudeau, pledging to retaliate for tariffs on EU goods. “The loss of trade through tariffs undermines competition, reduces productivity, removes the incentive to innovate and ultimately makes everyone poorer,” she said. “And in response, the EU will impose countermeasures.”
Trudeau and May also bucked Trump on another high-profile issue: Russia. Trump wants to have Russia — which was pushed out in 2014 over its aggression in eastern Ukraine — rejoin the group. Trudeau said he was “not remotely interested” in having Russia return to the group, made up of the world’s seven most advanced economies.
May added that she also welcomed the G-7’s recognition of the need to continue sanctions on Russia, given “Russia’s failure to fully implement the Minsk agreements” of 2014 that were meant to end the war in Ukraine. “We have agreed to stand ready to take further restrictive measures against Russia if necessary,” she said.
’Fair and reciprocal’ trade
Before leaving the summit Saturday, Trump said there must be “fair and reciprocal” trade between the U.S. and other countries.
“The United States has been taken advantage of for decades and decades and we can’t do that anymore,” he told reporters shortly before leaving the summit for Singapore, where he will meet next week with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
WATCH: President Trump on Trade
Trump said many “unfair foreign trading practices” are getting “straightened out slowly but surely.”
He blamed past U.S. leaders for the current global trade landscape and congratulated other world leaders for “so crazily being able to make these trade deals that were so good for countries and so bad for the United States.”
Trump declared “those days are over” and said that talks this weekend with G-7 leaders convinced him they are “committed to a much more fair-trade situation for the United States.”
At a bilateral meeting Friday with Trudeau, the U.S. president joked that the Canadian prime minister had agreed to “cut all tariffs.”
Despite the two leaders exchanging criticism of each other’s trade policies the previous day, Trump described the cross-border relationship as very good, stating “we’re actually working on cutting tariffs and making it all very fair for both countries. And we’ve made a lot of progress today. We’ll see how it all works out.”
In a subsequent sit-down meeting with Emmanuel Macron, Trump said the French president had been “very helpful” in efforts to address trade deficits with the European Union.
Macron responded that he had a “very direct and open discussion” with Trump, and “there is a critical path that is a way to progress all together.”
Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, confirmed she met Friday with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to discuss the tariffs and the fate of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). She said Canada, however, would not change its mind about the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, which she termed “illegal.”
Trump imposed the tariffs on the ground that weak domestic industries could affect U.S. national security. Canada, Mexico and the European Union are introducing retaliatory tariffs.
“I think the only way this moves toward a deal is if the concern grows among the G-7 countries about the economic impact of this, that Trump begins to feel some pressure from farmers and small manufacturers and others that are harmed, that other countries are feeling the pressure from the decline in their steel and aluminum exports to the United States and it causes some reconsideration of the current positions,” said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
On the eve of the summit, Trump had lashed out on Twitter at Macron and Trudeau, who had criticized Trump’s trade stance at a joint news conference Thursday in Ottawa. The White House then announced Trump would skip some of the G-7 sessions and depart for Singapore on Saturday morning, several hours earlier than planned.
Trudeau, alongside Trump, was asked if he was disappointed the U.S. president was leaving early. He did not reply, but Trump grinned broadly and said “he’s happy” before appearing to stick out his tongue.
Some attending the summit were openly expressing strong concern about Trump’s positions.
“What worries me most is that the rules-based international order is being challenged,” Donald Tusk, the chairman of European Union leaders, said at a news conference just prior to the start of the G-7 talks. “Quite surprisingly not by the usual suspects, but by its main architect and guarantor — the United States. Naturally, we cannot force the U.S. to change its mind.”
Should Trump disassociate with the group, reducing it to a G-6, it would leave the collective virtually inconsequential, according to some analysts.
“The United States accounts for more than half of the GDP of the total G-7. So, without the United States, the G-7 really isn’t anything,” according to Sebastian Mallaby, a CFR senior fellow for international economics.
Russia invitation?
Before departing the White House for Canada, the president told reporters that Russia should be invited back to the summits of leading advanced countries.
When asked about Russia on Saturday in Quebec, Trump said, “I think it would be good for the world. We’re looking for peace in the world. We’re not looking to play games.”
WATCH: President Trump on Russia
One other G-7 leader, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, said Friday in a tweet that he supported Trump’s suggestion.
But other G-7 leaders said it was not going to happen at this time.
European Union leaders are in agreement “that a return of Russia to the G-7 format summits can’t happen until substantial progress has been made in connection with the problems with Ukraine,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters.
A spokesman at the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, brushed it all off.
“Russia is focused on other formats apart from the G-7,” Peskov said, according to the Sputnik news agency.
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French President Emmanuel Macron’s economic policy is viewed as favoring the rich and must change to address inequalities, according to a memo written by three economists who worked on his campaign program, Le Monde newspaper said on Saturday.
The criticism is the latest sign of the trouble created by Macron’s economic reforms among the center-left supporters who propelled him to power last year.
In the confidential memo sent to Macron and plastered across Le Monde’s front page, the economists said his policy was failing to convince “even the most ardent supporters.”
“Many supporters of the then-candidate express their fear of a lurch to the right motivated by the temptation to steal the political space left vacant by a struggling conservative party,” the economists wrote.
Jean Pisani-Ferry, the Sciences Po Paris university professor who coordinated Macron’s economic program and is an influential voice in Franco-German academic circles, is one of the authors. He declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.
The other two, Philippe Martin, a former Macron adviser who heads France’s Council of Economic Analysis (CAE), and Philippe Aghion of the elite College de France, did not return Reuters’ requests for comment.
Macron, who campaigned on a promise to be “neither left nor right”, moved swiftly in his first year to loosen labor rules and slash a wealth tax, earning himself the nickname “president of the rich.”
The economists said there was a risk the French would find these measures unfair and think the government is deaf to the needs of the poorest in society.
“The president must talk about the issue of inequalities and not leave this debate to his opponents,” the economists wrote.
Among proposals to reduce inequalities, the economists suggested a rise in inheritance tax for the richest, scrapping tax credits on property investments, and cancelling Macron’s promise to abolish a housing tax for the wealthiest 20 percent.
Macron’s office confirmed it had received the note, but said it did not foretell government policy. Macron is currently in Canada with other Group of Seven
leaders, locked in a battle over trade tariffs with U.S. President Donald Trump.
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Australia’s Commonwealth Bank has agreed to pay a $530 million fine for breaching anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing laws. The scandal relates to more than 53,000 suspect transactions that the bank did not immediately report to authorities.
If approved by the Federal Court, this will be the largest civil penalty in Australian corporate history.
At the heart of the case were so-called smart cash machines that allowed customers to anonymously deposit and transfer money. Thousands of suspect transactions of more than $7,600 each were not referred to the authorities as required by law.
An investigation by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (AUSTRAC), the federal financial intelligence agency, along with state and federal police found the machines were being used to launder the proceeds of crime.
Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison says the bank must now rebuild its reputation.
“It is for them to rebuild that trust, it is for them to make these admissions, it is for them to incur these penalties and get on with the job of restoring trust in the conduct of the CBA and this, I think, is another important step toward doing that,” Morrison said.
The Commonwealth Bank said its actions were not deliberate but it understood “the seriousness of the mistakes” it had made. It had reportedly been anticipating a fine of about $285 million.
“For AUSTRAC, it is able to demonstrate that there has been serious failings by Commonwealth Bank (CBA), one of our major financial institutions,” said Ian Ramsey, a director at Melbourne University’s Center for Corporate Law. “I am sure what the bank did not want was a very lengthy trial where every day more evidence is brought before the court and then promptly reported in the media of systemic, serious failings by CBA.”
AUSTRAC said the penalty would send a strong message to Australia’s financial industry. Since February it has been investigated by a Royal Commission, Australia’s highest form of inquiry, which has unearthed widespread misconduct within the banking and financial services sector.
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Pope Francis has told the world’s oil executives that a transition to less-polluting energy sources “is a challenge of epochal proportions.”
On the last day of a two-day conference Saturday, the Roman Catholic leader urged the executives to provide electricity to the one billion people who are without it, but said that process must be done in a way that avoids “creating environmental imbalances resulting in deterioration and pollution gravely harmful to our human family, both now and in the future.”
Reuters reports the unprecedented conference was held behind closed doors at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
The news agency says the oil executives, investors and Vatican experts who attended the summit, believe, like the pope does, that science supports the notion that climate change is caused by human activity and that global warming must be curbed.
Pope Francis told the conference, “Our desire to ensure energy for all must not lead to the undesired effect of a spiral of extreme climate changes due to a catastrophic rise in global temperatures, harsher environments and increased levels of poverty.”
Microplastics, the tiny particles of plastic from decaying waste in the world’s oceans, have been found in seawater and snow in Antarctica. It had been hoped that the frozen continent was protected from the soaring levels of plastic waste in the world’s oceans, but research by environmental campaign group Greenpeace has revealed that few, if any, places on Earth appear able to escape the reach of plastic pollution. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Shoppers in the Afghan capital are going online for everything from fashion to furniture to avoid bomb attacks and sexual harassment, with dozens of startups doing a brisk trade where there were few on the ground two years ago.
Suicide bombings and other attacks in Kabul have killed and wounded hundreds of people this year, and security is expected to deteriorate ahead of elections planned for October. Sexual harassment on the street is widespread.
The new retailers, with names like AzadBazar.af, afom.af, JVBazar.com and zarinas.com, sell goods ranging from cosmetics, computers, kitchenware and furniture to cars, rugs and real estate. One website advertises foreign brands including Rolex, Adidas and Zara.
Harassment an issue
Student Asila Sulaimani described online shopping as a “good experience” in a country at war, with U.N. figures putting those younger than 25 at more than 60 percent of the population, the vast majority of them enthusiastic smartphone users.
“Who dares go out shopping these days?” she said.
“I am sure there are some people, but for me it has always been difficult. … Fears of an explosion, an attack and the most common thing, harassment, follow me like my shadow.”
Growing after 8 months
Tamim Rasa, 28, is the founder of Rasa Online, which he started with $30,000 eight months ago. He has since signed contracts with more than 60 stores and traders, with 80 percent of his customers women and cosmetics “a big part of business.”
The store has no physical presence in terms of stock, just an office of eight.
“We work as a connecting bridge between people and large stores and traders. A month ago, we were hardly managing to earn our expenses — we were making a loss — but now we are making a profit of 1,000 to 3,000 afghanis ($14 to $42) a day. It shows we are growing.”
He is now looking to expand to Herat province in the west, Kandahar in the south, Balkh in the north and Nangarhar, neighboring Pakistan, in the east.
Esmatullah, 27, owner of Afghan Mart, which he set up just more than a year ago, has a shop with 500,000 afghanis ($7,000) worth of goods.
“Big companies contact me to sell their imported goods. An average of 50 customers call me daily and we deliver,” he said, adding that he too is looking to expand into the provinces by the end of the year.
Diversionary tactics
The biggest challenge, he said, was security in a city where one bomb blast can be followed by a second in the same area.
Many people who have to go out take diversionary routes through narrow side alleys, sometimes through people’s homes and gardens, to avoid the threat and traffic of major roads and intersections.
“We have seen more bomb blasts in Kabul that delayed our delivery services,” Esmatullah said. “When that happens, we stop delivering in that direction or that part of the city.
“But the insecurity is one of the reasons that our business has found its way. And besides the insecurity, there is a bad culture of street harassment that unfortunately our women face in cities,” Esmatullah added.
Goods are delivered by motorcycle or public transport where possible and the deliverymen get paid up to 8,000 afghanis ($112) a month.
Began 2 years ago
Commerce Ministry spokesman Musafer Qoqandi described online shopping as “unique” for a country at war for more than four decades, with about 50 companies in business, most of them unlicensed.
“The culture of online stores only started two years ago in Kabul and right now more than 20 online stores have a license to trade — there are many more that have yet to get their license and we encourage them to come forward,” he said.
“Around the world, online stores are dealing with billions of dollars annually. It is time for us to join this convoy. … It is hope-giving when we see the growing number of such stores in Afghanistan,” Qoqandi added.
Student Roya Shakeb agreed.
“I needed some books for my exams. I searched shops and libraries without success, then I came across online stores. The book was on my doorstep the next day. Unbelievable.”
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Earthquakes happen frequently in Italy, but the famous leaning tower in Pisa still stands, puzzling scientists. An earthquake expert from University of Bristol thinks he knows why. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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Drones guided by artificial intelligence to catch boats netting fish where they shouldn’t were among the winners of a marine protection award on Friday and could soon be deployed to fight illegal fishing, organizers said.
The award-winning project aims to help authorities hunt down illegal fishing boats using drones fitted with cameras that can monitor large swaths of water autonomously.
Illegal fishing and overfishing deplete fish stocks worldwide, causing billions of dollars in losses a year and threatening the livelihoods of rural coastal communities, according to the United Nations.
The National Geographic Society awarded the project, co-developed by Morocco-based company ATLAN Space, and two other innovations $150,000 each to implement their plans as it marked World Oceans Day on Friday.
The aircraft can cover a range of up to 700 km (435 miles) and use artificial intelligence (AI) technology to drive them in search of fishing vessels, said ATLAN Space’s founder, Badr Idrissi.
“Once (the drone) detects something, it goes there and identifies what it’s seeing,” Idrissi told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
Idrissi said the technology, which is to be piloted in the Seychelles later this year, was more effective than traditional sea patrols and allowed coast guards to save money and time.
From satellites tracking trawlers on the high seas to computer algorithms identifying illegal behaviors, new technologies are increasingly coming to the aid of coast guards worldwide.
AI allows the drones to check a boat’s identification number, establish whether it is fishing inside a protected area or without permit, verify whether it is known to authorities and count people on board, Idrissi said.
If something appears to be wrong, it can alert authorities.
Other winners were Marine Conservation Cambodia, which uses underwater concrete blocks to impede the use of bottom-dragged nets, and U.S.-based Pelagic Data Systems, which plans to combat illegal fishing in Thailand with tracking technologies.
“The innovations from the three winning teams have the potential to greatly increase sustainable fishing in coastal systems,” National Geographic Society’s chief scientist Jonathan Baillie said in a statement.
Much of the world’s fish stocks are overfished or fully exploited, according the U.N. food agency, and fish consumption rose above 20 kilograms per person in 2016 for the first time.
Global marine catches have declined by 1.2 million tons a year since 1996, according to The Sea Around Us, a research initiative involving the University of British Columbia and the University of Western Australia.
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The very thought of visiting a hospital emergency department is stressful enough for many people, even without the discomfort or pain of an examination or treatment.
Enter an immersive virtual-reality program created by three graduates being used in France to relax patients and even increase their tolerance of pain, without resorting to drugs.
“What we offer is a contemplative world where the patient goes on a guided tour, in interactive mode, to play music, do a bit of painting or work out a riddle,” said Reda Khouadra, one of the 24-year-olds behind the project.
As patients are transported by chunky VR goggles into a three-dimensional world of Japanese zen gardens or snowy hillsides, they become more tolerant of minor but painful procedures such as having a cut stitched, a burn treated, a urinary catheter inserted or a dislocated shoulder pushed back into place.
“The virtual reality project … enables us to offer patients a technique to distract their attention and curb their pain and anxiety when being treated in the emergency room,” said Olivier Ganansia, head of the emergency department at the Saint-Joseph Hospital in Paris. “I think in 10 years, virtual reality won’t even be a question anymore, and will be used in hospitals routinely.”
The Healthy Mind startup is not a world first but has landed a $20,000 prize from a university in Adelaide, Australia — which will now pay for the three founders to present their project at Microsoft’s headquarters in Seattle.
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Efforts to fight suicide in the United States are desperate for additional funding, suicide-prevention experts said, following this week’s high profile deaths of celebrities Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, and new statistics showing a growing problem.
Federal funding for suicide trailed far behind other major public health issues, even though it is the 10th-leading cause of death among Americans, claiming one person every 12 minutes, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Our crisis centers across the country are chronically underfunded,” said John Draper, executive director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which can be reached at 1-800-273-TALK and provides free support 24 hours a day.
Other funding levels
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) provided about $35 million in 2017 to fund research into suicide prevention, with another $68 million devoted to the category of suicide, according to the agency’s statistics.
There were 45,000 U.S. suicides in 2016. In comparison, alcoholism, which killed an estimated 65,000 Americans in 2015, saw $500 million in funded research last year.
Private charities, which help sustain suicide prevention hotlines, also have a harder time raising funds than those that tackle some other health issues, experts said.
“Look at breast cancer. More people will die by suicide than breast cancer this year,” said Dan Reidenberg, executive director of the nonprofit Suicide Awareness Voices of Education.
Almost $690 million was spent on breast cancer research last year, according to NIH statistics. About 41,000 women will die from breast cancer this year, the American Cancer Society estimates.
High rate of suicide
The United States has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world, according to World Health Organization data. In 2015, the United States had a rate of 15.3 suicides per 100,000 people, well above the global average of 10.6 per 100,000, according to WHO.
Bourdain, a chef and host of CNN’s Parts Unknown food-and-travel show, died of an apparent suicide Friday in a French hotel. Spade, a fashion designer known for her popular handbags, was found dead in her apartment Tuesday after what her husband described as a long battle with depression.
Scientists are making progress in identifying ways of predicting suicide risk more precisely, including biomarkers that could indicate whether someone is more likely to attempt it, said Jane Pearson, chairwoman of the National Institute of Mental Health’s suicide research consortium.
Undiagnosed mental health problems, stresses such as loss of a job or a loved one, relationship problems, financial difficulties and physical problems can contribute to suicide, experts said.
‘Confluence of factors’
“It’s usually a confluence of factors,” said Jerry Reed, a member of the executive committee of the Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention. “We have to be mindful of the whole spectrum.”
Research has shown that direct intervention, much like the use of suicide hotlines, can help people contemplating suicide to change their minds, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s Draper said.
The key is to think of suicide as a public health issue, much like diseases such as AIDS or cancer, said Christine Moutier, the chief medical officer at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
While tragic, the deaths of Spade and Bourdain could help spread the message that suicides can be prevented, experts said.
“It definitely is a teachable moment,” Pearson said.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) says it is cautiously optimistic about containing the spread of the Ebola virus in Democratic Republic of Congo, but warns that much work lies ahead. Thirty eight of 62 suspected cases have been confirmed. Of this total number of confirmed cases, 27 people have died.
The World Health Organization reports the majority of confirmed Ebola cases were detected two to three weeks ago. Since then, there only have been a few sporadic cases.It notes there have been no confirmed cases since mid-May in two of the three affected areas in DR Congo, the large city of Mbandaka and Bikoro, where the virus was originally detected one month ago.
Peter Salama, the WHO’s deputy director general of emergency preparedness and response, said the fact that there have been no recent confirmed cases is important. He said nearly 700 people who were in contact with infected individuals have been immunized with a promising, experimental vaccine.
“We have added cause for optimism because now we have reached for the majority of the contacts — more than 98 percent of the contacts — with vaccination,” he said. “And because the vaccination for the majority of them occurred 10 days ago, we believe that the majority of those contacts in the ring vaccination are now protected against Ebola. So that gives us a lot of source of optimism along with the fact that we have not seen cases since mid-May in those two locations.”
Salama said phase one to protect urban centers and towns has gone well and the WHO will now begin phase two. He said the focus will be on vaccinating health workers and contacts of infected persons in the third affected area of Iboko and the tiny town of Itipo within this health zone. A case of Ebola was confirmed there on Thursday.
Iboko is a very remote, forested region with a large, marginalized indigenous population. The town of Itipo has no infrastructure, power or running water. Salama said the logistical challenges of identifying, tracing and then vaccinating every contact of an infected person in this area are enormous and the work ahead over the coming weeks will be very tough.
An Ebola outbreak in West Africa a few years ago left more than 11,000 people dead.
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A growing number of e-cigarette and vaporizer sellers have started offering college scholarships as a way to get their brands listed on university websites and to get students to write essays about the potential benefits of vaping.
The tactic is taken from a method that was once believed to improve a site’s ranking in search results, and it has successfully landed vaping brands on the sites of some of the nation’s best-known universities, including Harvard. It also has drawn criticism that the scholarships are a thinly disguised ploy to attract young customers.
The scholarships, ranging from $250 to $5,000, mostly involve essay contests that ask students to write about the dangers of tobacco or whether vaping could be a safer alternative. At least one company asks applicants to write about different types of e-cigarettes and which one they recommend. Some seek papers in support of medical marijuana.
Over the last two years, the grants have been posted online by e-cigarette retailers and review websites such as Slick Vapes, SmokeTastic and DaVinci Vaporizer.
Scholarship offers removed
Robert Pagano, owner of the Las Vegas-based review site Vapor Vanity, said he was offering new scholarships of up to $1,500 this year. He acknowledged it’s partly a marketing tool, but he also says many in the industry are former smokers and want to help teens avoid tobacco.
“It’s a little bit of being genuine, a little bit of self-interest,” said Pagano, whose company does not sell vaping products. “This is probably the best way to get people to actually focus on the issues that we’re trying to write about.”
Days after Pagano was interviewed by The Associated Press, the scholarships were removed from his site without explanation. He did not return calls or emails seeking further comment.
The grants have emerged as high schools struggle to rein in booming teen use of the devices, sometimes threatening students with suspensions or installing alarms that can detect the devices’ discreet vapor. Federal agencies have attempted to crack down on underage sales and are investigating marketing efforts by the brand Juul, which has become especially popular among teens.
Although some of the scholarships are limited to students 18 and older — the nation’s legal age to buy vaping products — many are open to younger teens or have no age limit.
Most companies behind the essay contests did not return calls or declined interview requests. But the American Vaping Association trade group defended the practice, saying it allows companies to boost their brand while offering college students a helping hand.
Alcohol makers have same program
The head of the association, Gregory Conley, compared it with scholarship programs that have long been offered by alcohol makers like Anheuser-Busch, which distributes tens of thousands of dollars each year for minority students.
Some anti-tobacco groups were unaware of the scholarships until asked about them by the AP, but they sharply criticized efforts to get teens writing in favor of vaping.
“They’re trying to use youth as their marketing surrogates,” said Gregg Haifley, director of federal relations for the American Cancer Society’s lobbying arm in Washington. “They can gussy it up any way they want, try to put lipstick on that pig, but this is about marketing.”
Opponents said the scholarships could test federal rules forbidding tobacco and e-cigarette companies from marketing to minors. The Food and Drug Administration, which oversees regulation of e-cigarettes, declined to comment on the question and referred a reporter to the Federal Trade Commission. An FTC spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Long-term effects an unknown
Most medical experts agree that vaping is safer than smoking traditional cigarettes, but little is known about its long-term health effects.
Manufacturers often say vaping products are meant only for adults trying to quit smoking, and some of the essay contests note that they aren’t meant to promote vaping. But some anti-tobacco groups say there’s no other reason the companies would reach out to young people.
“Most of these kids are not smokers,” said Robin Koval, president of the Truth Initiative, a Washington-based nonprofit that opposes the tobacco and vaping industries. “What they’re saying and what they’re doing don’t seem to agree here. But that’s not surprising.”
It’s unclear how many — if any — of the scholarships have been awarded. Several websites promise to publicize winners and their essays, but it doesn’t appear any have done so. None of the 15 companies contacted by the AP would disclose winners, and only one agreed to an interview.
Marketing experts say the vaping industry isn’t the first to use college scholarships as a form of cheap advertising. The internet is teeming with similar offers from websites that sell weight-loss pills and protein powders, as well as payday lenders and companies that pay cash for gold.
‘Backdoor’ approach
The tactic was created years ago, at a time when websites thought getting their link on a college or government site would boost their rankings in Google search results. Some created scholarships purely to get their links on university financial-aid pages.
“This is almost a backdoor way to get your name on a university website, and from the point of view of the student, it would look like the university is supporting this effort,” said Ron Berman, who teaches marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s business school.
The tactic worked. Vaping scholarships have ended up on financial-aid directories compiled by Harvard, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Pittsburgh and others, including institutions that have taken a stance against e-cigarettes.
Harvard and California State University at Long Beach immediately removed the listings after being asked about them by the AP, saying they had been posted inadvertently.
“We’re not interested in being a platform for tobacco or vaping,” said Jeff Bliss, a spokesman for CSU Long Beach.
Outdated strategy?
Some marketing firms advise against the strategy, calling it outdated. Google has updated its algorithm to defeat similar tactics, and it penalizes sites that try to manipulate search rankings.
Wil Reynolds, founder of the Philadelphia-based marketing agency Seer Interactive, said his company employed the strategy years ago for clients connected to the education world, but he abandoned it after other industries started exploiting it.
It is a shady practice when you really can’t back it up with a legitimate reason,” he said.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been signaling his desire to open up the reclusive state’s economy, ushering in what some analysts believe could be a “reform and opening up era” similar to what happened in China four decades ago. But how far North Korea is willing to go and what concrete measures it is willing to or could take remain unclear, especially with sanctions still firmly in place.
Next week’s Singapore summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to shed light on what steps Pyongyang is prepared to take toward denuclearization and that, in turn, could pave the way for a possible boom in economic activity after sanctions are removed.
Though many hurdles and much uncertainty remain, the glimmer of opportunity for business options in North Korea is an improvement, said Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
“Given how hermetically closed North Korea has been for decades, any uncertainty about the future and any potential opening up is actually an improvement on the status quo for foreign businesses,” Kirkegaard said in an emailed response to VOA.
Mission accomplished
In a key address in late April, Kim declared that North Korea had completed the development of its nuclear arsenal and would no longer carry out nuclear or missile tests. In the speech, he also proclaimed that the “new strategic line” for the ruling “Workers’ Party” would be developing the economy.
That shift toward focusing more on improving the people’s livelihood has been a key driver behind the North’s about face in recent months, analysts note. And its stated shift of priorities from nuclear weapons to economic development presents an opportunity for more fundamental changes.
Lu Chao, a North Korea expert at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, said that if sanctions are loosened, areas likely to see a boom in investment are ones with fewer hurdles such as travel and tourism.
Infrastructure is likely to be another key area of focus, he said, with the majority of initial foreign investment expected to come from China and South Korea.
“Currently, power and transportation are two areas that are in urgent need of transformation [in North Korea] from an economic perspective. In the near future, developments are likely to focus on this area,” Lu said.
Neighbors first
Analysts said that China and South Korea are likely to benefit the most in the beginning from any opening up of the economy. Few see the United States playing a significant role inititally, let alone taking up a significant portion of North Korea’s trade.
China currently is North Korea’s biggest trading partner and investor, but analysts see Seoul also playing a key role.
South Korea’s economy is massive by comparison to its northern neighbor. The total value of goods and services produced and sold in South Korea in 2016 was $1.34 trillion. North Korea’s gross domestic product, or GDP, for that same year was estimated to be just under $30 billion.
South Korea’s vast resources could provide crucial investment support to North Korea. But to get investors into the country, Pyongyang will not only need to make policy adjustments, but pass legislation that provides guarantees for investors as well, said Jia Qingguo, a political science professor at Peking University.
“When companies look to invest, they are not just pursuing a vision, but more than that they are looking to grow profits,” Jia said. “And if there is no way to make profits, why would they go in the first place?”
Adapting to change
Analysts said that as North Korea looks to transform its centrally planned economy, it will adopt some measures from China and other countries, but will never admit that it is doing so.
“North Korea won’t adopt a China, Vietnam or Cuba model,” Lu said. “In the beginning, [North Korea] is likely to create development zones where special economic policies can be put into place.”
Lu said that such zones would have some similarities to those in China, but would be completely cut off from the broader economy and public — fenced in by barbed war.
Starting in 2013, Kim Jong Un began stepping up efforts to open more than a dozen special economic zones, but international sanctions have seriously slowed the development of those projects, analysts said.
North Korea has cautiously approached such changes in the past and that is not likely to change going forward. Jia Qingguo said Kim will need to do more than create a narrative to explain why the country is shifting its focus toward economic development.
“As he tries to open up North Korea’s economy, he will also need to pay attention to political stability and make adjustments to the country’s system [of governance],”Jia said. “Whether he can do that or not is uncertain.”
VOA’s Saibal Dasgupta and Joyce Huang contributed to this report.
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China’s trade surplus with the United States rose to $24.58 billion in May, from $22.15 billion in April, according to Chinese customs data published Friday.
China’s export growth in May was 12.6 percent, slightly down from 12.9 percent in April, but well above the 10 percent that economists polled by the Reuters news agency had predicted.
Chinese imports also increased year over year in May, rising 26 percent.
For the first five months of the year, China’s trade surplus with U.S. was $104.85 billion.
Both countries have threatened to hike tariffs on goods worth up to $150 billion each, as President Donald Trump has demanded Beijing open its economy further and address the U.S. large trade deficit with China.
Earlier this week, China warned the U.S. that any trade and business agreements between the two countries “will not take effect” if Trump’s threatened tariff hike and other measures on Chinese goods are implemented.
The warning came after U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Liu He ended two days of talks in Beijing aimed at settling the simmering trade dispute, in which Beijing pledged to narrow its trade surplus.
The White House renewed a threat last week to raise duties on $50 billion of Chinese technology-related goods over that dispute.
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Just less than $6 billion worth of U.S. waste was sent to China last year to be converted into packaging and products, and then shipped back to the United States and other markets. Scrap recyclers had taken advantage of low shipping costs for empty containers returning to China after the ships had unloaded their goods on the U.S. West Coast.
Today, that flow of trash is just a trickle, the result of a Chinese ban that went into effect Jan. 1 on many types of foreign garbage, from mixed papers to waste textiles.
The result of the ban is seen at a recycling facility in Anaheim, California, owned by Republic Services, a national company headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. The parking lot of the materials recovery facility (MRF) is brimming with 2,400 bales of mixed paper that once would have been bound for China.
The surplus is a result of an unprecedented 12-day backlog, said James Castro, the facility’s general manager.
And it’s not clear where it’s all going.
China has banned imports of mixed paper, as well as low-grade plastics, certain metals and other types of waste. In April, it expanded the ban, to go into effect later this year, to include more metals and chemical waste. A ban on additional kinds of scrap, including waste timber, is being targeted for the end of 2019.
WATCH: China Trash Ban Creates Crisis for US Recyclers
Less-contaminated scrap
It has also imposed stricter contamination standards on the scrap it does accept, allowing only 0.5 percent contaminants, down for most materials from 1.5 percent.
That has slowed the sorting process, said Richard Coupland, Republic’s vice president of municipal sales.
Further complicating matters, the ban has led to a huge reduction in worldwide prices on recyclable goods, such as mixed paper.
One year ago, bales of unsorted paper, like those now stacked in the parking lot, would have been worth $100 a ton. Today, each ton is worth “less than $5, or negative in some markets,” including shipping costs, Coupland said. He added that much of the industry’s backlog may end up in landfills.
To the north in the city of Azusa, Waste Management’s MRF is also dealing with tightened standards for the workers and sorting machines that use magnets, optical sensors and other means to separate the waste. Executives say they are tweaking a costly system that was designed to meet China’s insatiable craving for scrap.
Asia-based journalist Adam Minter, author of the book Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade, sums up the dilemma facing these companies.
“Recycling is about manufacturing,” Minter said, “and if somebody doesn’t want to use those raw materials, then putting stuff in your recycling bin is doing nothing more than playing with your garbage.”
He says China’s trash ban is spurred partly by a desire to clean up the environment, but even more by nationalism and a desire for political control.
“When you see China pushing against the recycling industry,” Minter said, “it’s really pushing against private industry and in favor of state-owned enterprises, and that is very much in line with the way that Chinese economic policy has been going for the last five years.”
‘Shockwaves around the world’
Some environmentalists have welcomed the trash ban.
Greenpeace East Asia plastic campaigner Liu Hua said it will send “shockwaves around the world” and force countries to confront their attitudes toward waste, especially environmental contaminants like plastics.
China expert Joshua Goldstein of the University of Southern California said the ban will have social repercussions in China.
Goldstein has studied the informal sector of 3-5 million small-scale recyclers, entrepreneurs whom he says are “picking through (trash) and making their lives slightly better every day through the money that they made.”
“It had environmental repercussions,” he said, “but it also raised 3 to 5 million households out of poverty.”
Goldstein said China faces hurdles to create an operation as efficient.
Companies are also searching for new markets. More recyclable scrap from the United States will now go to India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand or Indonesia, but industry experts say shipping costs are high and demand in those countries is limited.
As commodity prices drop, there is hope for increased use for scrap such as mixed paper in the United States.
Cleaning up waste
Brent Bell, vice president of recycling operations for Waste Management, said his company is also cleaning up its waste to meet the higher standards that China and other countries are demanding.
“I think as an industry, we’re all at fault to some degree,” Bell said, noting the company is working to educate consumers about better recycling. “Something we all missed as an industry,” he added. “Whether we’re shipping material to China, to India, or even to Louisiana, our customers all want to make sure the material is as clean as possible.”
Republic’s Coupland said the waste and recycling industry needs to work with local communities to find a new business model to replace one that has become unsustainable. It could mean, he said, an increase in the rate that consumers pay for hauling away their trash.
China may yet make adjustments to its policies, USC’s Goldstein added.
Paper fiber is hard to replace, he notes, and China may loosen its bans to bring in the raw materials that its manufacturers require.
“What parts of this reform, this ban, are going to be long term and what parts are going to be short term is still quite unclear,” Goldstein said. But he noted that the economics of the recycling industry are changing.
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As summer draws near in the Northern Hemisphere, millions of people will slather on sunscreen to protect themselves from the sun’s harmful rays. But most sunscreens contain chemicals harmful to the oceans. Now researchers in London have developed a compound found in seaweed that could be the basis for a new generation of environmentally friendly sunscreens. As VOA’s Julie Taboh reports, they may not only protect us from damaging rays from the sun but also act as an anti-oxidant.
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North Korea’s senior leadership has been exploiting loopholes in international sanctions to obtain the U.S. technology that Pyongyang uses to conduct “destructive cyber operations,” according to a global cyberthreat intelligence company.
Recorded Future, based in Massachusetts, found that while export bans and restrictions are somewhat effective in keeping North Korea from acquiring technology for its nuclear weapons program, sanctions fail when it comes to regulating computer products from entering into North Korea.
“Because of the globalized nature of technology production and distribution, the traditional export control is not really working for [computer] technology,” said Priscilla Moriuchi, one of the authors of “North Korea Relies on U.S. Technology for Internet Operations.” “It may work quite well for ballistic missile parts or fissile material, but the system is not designed to limit technology transfer, and it’s not optimized for that.”
Upcoming summit
In the report, Moriuchi and her co-author, Fred Wolens, call for a “globally robust unified effort to impose comprehensive sanctions” on North Korea, warning that without this Pyongyang “will be able to continue its cyberwarfare operations unabated with the aid of Western technology.”
The report was released days before North Korean leader Kim Jung Un and U.S. President Donald Trump are scheduled to meet in Singapore for a summit focused on ending the North’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for economic incentives and security guarantees.
But some consider North Korea’s cyberthreat capabilities as damaging as the threat of its nuclear weapons, Morgan Wright, a former a senior adviser in the U.S. State Department Antiterrorism Assistance Program, wrote in The Hill.
Even as advance teams prepared for the June 12 summit, North Korean cyberattacks continued, Moriuchi told Cyberscoop. On May 28, it reported the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI released a joint alert about Hidden Cobra, which is associated with North Korea’s hacking activities.
FireEye, a Silicon Valley cybersecurity company, detected cyberattacks by Lazarus, the North Korean hacking effort responsible for stealing millions of dollars from the Bangladesh Central Bank in 2016. Lazarus is also believed responsible for the 2014 Sony Picture’s hack and last year’s WannaCry ransomware attack.
Defining ‘luxury goods’
How did U.S. technology reach North Korea? Part of the answer lies in “international inconsistencies in the definition of the term ‘luxury goods,’” according to the Recorded Future report. The U.S. “effort to restrict technology exports at the national and international level” has not reaped results because of “varied definitions by nations and [their] inconsistent implementations,” said Moriuchi, a former East Asia analyst for the National Security Agency.
While the United Nations did not include electronics in Resolution 2321, which covered exports to North Korea, when it was issued in 2016, each member nation was allowed to interpret luxury goods. The U.S. has defined luxury goods to include laptop computers, digital music players, large flat-screen televisions and electronic entertainment software. China, in particular, does not “honor the luxury goods listed by other countries when it exports to” North Korea, according to the report.
US exports OK
Another factor is that for seven years in the period spanning 2002 to 2017, “the United States allowed the exportation of ‘computer and electronic products’ to North Korea,” according to the report. The total for those seven years was more than $430,000 of legal exports, and according to Recorded Future, “at its peak in 2014, the U.S. exported $215,862 worth of computers and electronic products to North Korea.”
The Recorded Future report, citing the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), said that category includes “computers, computer peripherals (including items like printers, monitors and storage devices), communications equipment (such as wired and wireless telephones), and similar components for these products.”
Much of that equipment remains in use, according to Recorded Future, and North Korea’s ruling elites, including party, military, and intelligence leaders and their families, have long been known to use products manufactured by U.S. companies such as Apple, Microsoft and IBM to access the internet.
A third element in how the U.S. tech went astray is what the report called North Korea’s “sophisticated sanctions evasion operation, which uses intermediaries and spoofs identities online.”
As an example, the study points to North Korea’s shell company Glocom with which Pyongyang “used a network of Asian-based front companies to buy computer components from electronic resellers, and the payment was even cleared through a U.S. bank account.” The United Nations found that Glocom was tied to Pan Systems Pyongyang, whose director, Ryang Su Nyo, reports to Liaison Office 519 in the North Korean intelligence agency’s Reconnaissance General Bureau.
Just like us
North Korea’s elites surfed and browsed just like users outside North Korea until recently when the Recorded Future researchers found “a stark change” in the elite’s usage patterns as they “migrated almost completely” from Facebook, Google and Instagram “to their Chinese equivalents — Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu,” and over the course of a few months “dramatically increased” their use of internet obfuscation services, such as virtual private networks (VPN), virtual private servers (VPS), transport layer security (TLS) and the Onion Router (Tor).
While tracking the change in activity from December 2017 to April 2018, researchers found “the overwhelming presence of American hardware and software on North Korea networks and in daily use by senior North Korean leaders.”
While U.S. exporters are responsible for understanding and adhering to export regulations, the study indicates even the implementation of robust compliance procedures were insufficient in preventing banned U.S. computer products from reaching North Korea.
U.S. export enforcement rests with the Office of Foreign Asset Control, the Office of Export Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations. The U.S. is one of the only countries that enforces its export laws outside of its national boundaries, placing federal agents in foreign countries to work with local authorities.
Widespread international sanctions were imposed beginning in 2006, when North Korea conducted its first nuclear weapons test. In response, the U.N. passed two resolutions (Resolution 1695 and 1718) banning a broad range of exports to North Korea by any U.N. member states. The U.N. subsequently expanded those sanctions through a number of resolutions that prohibit and restrict exporting items ranging from missile material to oil to North Korea.
The case of ZTE
The Recorded Future report mentions Chinese manufacturer ZTE (Zhongxing Telecommunications Equipment) as a case where the implementation of export regulation failed, pointing out that the U.S. had the chance to enforce its export laws when the company was under Export Administration Regulation (EAR), a dense set of laws regulating exports.
ZTE was initially placed on the so-called Entities List for violating U.S. sanctions for selling products containing U.S. goods to Iran and North Korea in March 2016. For two years, the company and the U.S. government attempted to reach an agreement over penalties and how to verify that ZTE had stopped violating U.S. sanctions.
The Department of Commerce (DOC) ended the negotiations and imposed a denial order that banned U.S. companies from selling to ZTE for seven years.
In May, the DOC lifted the denial order, which would have put ZTE out of business, and allowed ZTE to purchase components from U.S. companies. The move came after threats of a trade war and Trump’s intervention.
Moriuchi said if the U.S. had let ZTE fail, it would have sent “a huge message to the rest of the world that there is no [company] too big to fail” and that “the U.S. government takes export control very seriously.”
In the end, “an opposite message ended up being sent with the administration’s deal with China, and that there are companies too big to fail especially if that company … has significant interest with the United States,” she said, adding the case demonstrated that “you can circumvent U.S. export control as a company and in the end, survive.”
The U.S. enforces its export laws through the DOC and regulates them through EAR, which not only restricts commercial goods and technologies from reaching hostile countries but also regulates the re-export of U.S. goods and technologies from one foreign country to another.
Until 2008, U.S. sanctions prohibiting exports to North Korea were implemented through the Trading with the Enemy Act, through which the U.S. government banned any exports to designated countries including North Korea.
Subsequently, the Obama administration issued the North Korea Sanctions Regulations and a number of Executive Orders (13551, 13570, 13687, and 13722) to further prohibit various measures, including exports of “goods, services or technology to North Korea.”
Additionally, numerous U.S. sanctions were imposed against North Korea under Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign, especially in 2017 during Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles tests, which also saw the U.N. issue new sanctions.
VOA’s Christy Lee contributed to this report.
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Growing up on Mount Boutmezguida in southwest Morocco on the edge of the Sahara desert, Khadija Ghouate never imagined that the fog enveloping the nearby peaks would change her life.
For hours every day and often before sunrise, Ghouate and other women from nearby villages would walk 5 km (3 miles) to fetch water from open wells, with girls pulled out of school to help and at risk of violence on the lonely treks.
But with groundwater levels dropping due to overuse, drought and climate change, the challenge to get enough water daily was becoming harder, and almost half of people in the local area sold up and quit rural life after generations for the city.
As the future of the traditional Berber region by Mount Boutmezguida floundered, a mathematician whose family came from the area had a eureka moment gleaned from living overseas – using fog to make water.
Now Ghouate’s village is connected to the world’s largest functioning fog collection project, alleviating the need to collect water that fell mainly on women, and with state-of-the-art equipment setting an example for other projects globally.
“You always had to go to the wells, always be there, mornings, evenings,” said Ghouate, a mother-of-three, as she prepared lunch for her family, showing off the tap in her home.
“But now water has arrived in our house. I like fog a lot.
The project, running since 2015 after nine years of surveys and tests, was founded by the Moroccan non-government organization Dar Si Hmad, which works to promote and preserve local culture, history, and heritage.
It was the brainchild of mathematician and businessman Aissa Derhem whose parents were originally from Mount Boutmezguida where the slopes are covered in mist on average 130 days a year.
Derhem first came across fog collection when he learned of one of the world’s first projects – in Chile’s Atacama Desert – while he living in Canada in the 1980s studying for his PhD.
But it was not until visiting his parents’ village years later that he realized the mountainous location, situated at the edge of the Sahara and about 35 km (22 miles) from the Atlantic Ocean, was perfect for fog.
Ideal Location
Mist accumulates in coastal areas where a cold sea current, an anticyclone and a land obstacle, such as a mountain range, combine.
“When the sea water evaporates, the anticyclone … stops it from becoming rain, and when it hits the mountain, that’s where it can be gathered,” Derhem told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, looking out from the top of Mount Boutmezguida besides a small building used as a fog observatory and tool deposit.
“If we look at the planet, we see this happening in all tropical regions … In Chile and Peru in Latin America. The Kalahari desert in Africa. In Western Australia. Around the Thar desert in India and in California,” he listed as examples.
Developed in South America in the 1980s, fog collection projects have since spread globally to countries including Guatemala, Ghana, Eritrea, Nepal and the United States.
In Morocco, Dar Si Hmad has built a system of nets stretching about 870 square metres – about 4.5 tennis courts.
These nets are hung between two poles and when wind pushes the fog through the mesh, water droplets are trapped, condense and fall into a container at the bottom of the unit with pipes connecting the water to reservoirs.
Derhem hopes the success of the Mount Boutmezguida scheme can help other areas in West Africa and in North Africa – where the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says fresh water resources are among the world’s lowest.
Studies show climate change impacting water patterns globally and Derhem said in Morocco levels have dropped to about 500 cubic meters a person a year from about 1,500 cubic meters a person in the 1960s on calculations based on government figures.
Challenges Too
The principles behind fog collection are simple, and throughout nature examples exist of creatures capturing moisture from the air in the most arid conditions, ranging from beetles in the Namib Desert to lizards in the Australian outback.
But creating a water collection project on a large scale comes with challenges, as the research and development, as well as the infrastructure and technology involved in expanding and developing fog collection projects, can be costly.
The project at Mount Boutmezguida, however, has been a trailblazer for other projects due to its equipment, according to its founders.
The original nets used were insufficiently resistant to the high winds and tore but a partnership with the German non-profit Water Foundation allowed Dar Si Hmad to develop a stronger net.
The CloudFisher was described by the WaterFoundation as the first maintance-free fog collector that can withstand wind speeds of up 120 kph with flexible troughs following the movement of the net in the wind.
Now collected water is filtered and combined with underground water before being distributed to villages on the grid with homes paying for water through a pre-paid system.
The initial pilot project served five villages. At present, the 870 square metres of nets installed reach about 140 families – 14 villages – while a second set of nets is being built.
“Fog is like aeroplanes at the start. At the beginning they were only little toys but, with some effort, things have changed … but it needs investment,” said Derhem.
“Along the coast, there is three times as much fog as there is available on Mount Boutmezguida. The government spends millions for water desalination processes. This is something that is worth exploring.”
For with dry wells comes anxiety and risk but also the unraveling of traditional livelihoods and communities.
Mohamed Zabour, president of the local municipality, said more than 60 percent of the inhabitants of the region live without running water in their homes.
Between 2004 and 2014, 2,000 of the 5,000 local residents moved to cities.
“Our region is rich but it needs infrastructure. And water is one of the priorities,” said Zabour.
“If we don’t find a solution in the next 10 years, it’s going to be a catastrophe … It’s going to be like a desert. Empty.”
For Ghouate, the fog scheme has improved village life.
“When we were kids, we didn’t even know what it meant to need water … Now there is less rain and if I still had to go to the wells, I wouldn’t find much water now,” she said. “Everything is about water, everything. I don’t have to worry about it anymore.”
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