At CES, the large consumer electronics show happening this week in Las Vegas, companies are showing off their latest products and services amid a crush of visitors. One theme this year – everything can be made better by adding sensors and internet connectivity. Michelle Quinn reports.
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Ecuador’s comptroller’s office on Monday announced it will open an audit of debt contracted in the last five years of the government of former President Rafael Correa to determine the legality of the operations and the use of the funds.
The move follows a report by the comptroller’s office revealing that some documentation relating to debt operations had been declared secret and that official reports on public debt had excluded some of the operations.
President Lenin Moreno, a former Correa protege, since his election last year been has criticized the ex-president’s handling of the economy and is seeking to unwind some Correa-era reforms. Correa says such efforts constitute a “coup” by Moreno.
A team of economists, lawyers and businessmen will analyze debt operations carried out between January 2012 and May 2017 and will present recommendations in April.
Comptroller Pablo Celi said Correa and former Finance Ministry officials had been notified about investigation.
Shortly after taking office last May, Moreno said that total public debt was $42 billion dollars, plus additional liabilities including some associated with payments to oil services companies.
I have just learned of a supposed preliminary report on the audit of the debt and a commission that includes several haters of the (Citizen’s Revolution),” Correa said via Twitter, referring to his political movement.
During a later speech in the city of Guayaquil he described the probe as “persecution.”
The former president is leading a campaign for the “No” vote in a Feb. 4 referendum on constitutional reforms include a measure to prohibit indefinite re-election, a measure Correa created that allowed him to run for a second term.
Correa himself in 2008 commissioned a team of experts to study the country’s prior debt operations. The experts concluded that several debt operations were “illegitimate,” leading his government to declare a default.
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From gritty neighborhoods in New York and Los Angeles to clinics in Kenya and Brazil, health workers are trying to popularize a pill that has proven highly effective in preventing HIV but which – in their view – remains woefully underused.
Marketed in the United States as Truvada, and sometimes available abroad in generic versions, the pill has been shown to reduce the risk of getting HIV from sex by more than 90 percent if taken daily. Yet worldwide, only about a dozen countries have aggressive, government-backed programs to promote the pill. In the U.S., there are problems related to Truvada’s high cost, lingering skepticism among some doctors and low usage rates among black gays and bisexuals who have the highest rates of HIV infection.
“Truvada works,” said James Krellenstein, a New York-based activist. “We have to start thinking of it not as a luxury but as an essential public health component of this nation’s response to HIV.”
A few large U.S. cities are promoting Truvada, often with sexually charged ads. In New York, “Bare It All” was among the slogans urging gay men to consult their doctors. The Los Angeles LGBT Center – using what it called “raw, real language” – launched a campaign to increase use among young Latino and black gay men and transgender women.
“We’ve got the tools to not only end the fear of HIV, but to end it as an epidemic,” said the center’s chief of staff, Darrel Cummings. “Those at risk have to know about the tools, though, and they need honest information about them.”
Truvada in the U.S.
In New York, roughly 30 percent of gay and bisexual men are using Truvada now, up dramatically from a few years ago, according to Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a deputy commissioner of the city’s health department.
However, Daskalakis said use among young black and Hispanic men – who account for a majority of new HIV diagnoses – lags behind. To address that, the city is making Truvada readily available in some clinics in or near heavily black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
“We like to go to the root of the problem,” said Daskalakis, who personally posed for the “Bare It All” campaign.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , Truvada would be appropriate for about 1.2 million people in the U.S. – including sex workers and roughly 25 percent of gay men. Gilead Scientific, Truvada’s California-based manufacturer, says there are only about 145,000 active prescriptions for HIV prevention use.
Under federal guidelines, prime candidates for preventive use of Truvada include some gay and bisexual men with multiple sexual partners, and anyone who does not have HIV but has an ongoing sexual relationship with someone who has the virus.
An international approach
Abroad, a few government health agencies – including those in France, Norway, Belgium, Kenya, South Africa, Brazil and some Canadian provinces – have launched major efforts to promote preventive use of Truvada or generic alternatives, providing it for free or a nominal charge. In Britain, health officials in Scotland and England recently took steps to provide the medication directly through government-funded programs, though in England it’s in the form of a trial limited to 10,000 people.
Truvada was launched in 2004, initially used in combination with other drugs as the basic treatment for people who have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. It is primarily spread through sex.
Controversy arose in 2012 when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Truvada to reduce the risk of getting HIV in the first place, for what’s called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. It blocks the virus from making copies and taking hold. Critics warned that many gay men wouldn’t heed Truvada’s once-a-day schedule and complained of its high cost – roughly $1,500 a month.
Gilead offers a payment assistance plan to people without insurance that covers the full cost. Some cities and a few states – including Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington – also help cover costs. Activists have pressed Gilead to make its copay program more generous in light of its profits from Truvada.
“There’s no reason it has to cost so much,” said Krellenstein.
Gilead spokesman Ryan McKeel, in an email, said the company is reviewing the copay program.
“Like those in the advocacy community, we are committed to expanding access to Truvada for PrEP to as many people as possible,” he wrote.
In June, the FDA approved a generic version of Truvada, which is likely to push the price down, but it won’t be available in the U.S. for a few years.
The Truvada debate has taken many twists, as exemplified by the varying stances of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation – a leading HIV/AIDS service provider. In 2012, the group unsuccessfully petitioned the FDA to delay or deny approval of Truvada for preventive use. The foundation’s president, Michael Weinstein, belittled Truvada as “a party drug” and warned it would increase the spread of sexually transmitted infections by encouraging men to engage in sex without condoms.
But last year, the foundation, while still skeptical about some Truvada-related policies, urged Gilead to cut its price to make it more available.
“We have no dispute about its ability to prevent HIV transmission,” said spokesman Ged Kenslea. He noted that the organization’s 40 pharmacies across the U.S. handle many Truvada prescriptions.
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Two former employees of Google have accused the tech giant of discriminating against conservative white men, in a class action lawsuit filed Monday.
One of the accusers, James Damore, was fired from the company last year after writing a memo defending the gender gap in Silicon Valley tech jobs as possibly a matter of biological differences between men and women.
Damore and David Gudeman, another former engineer at the Google, filed the suit at the Santa Clara Superior Court in California, alleging discrimination and retaliation.
The two argue in their suit that Google uses illegal hiring quotas to fill jobs with women and minority applicants.
“Google’s management goes to extreme — and illegal — lengths to encourage hiring managers to take protected categories such as race and/or gender into consideration as determinative hiring factors, to the detriment of Caucasian and male employees,” the complaint stated.
The suit also accuses the company of not protecting employees with conservative viewpoints, including employees who support U.S. President Donald Trump.
“Damore, Gudeman and other class members were ostracized, belittled, and punished for their heterodox political views, and for the added sin of their birth circumstances of being Caucasians and/or males,” the lawsuit said.
Google said it looks forward to defending itself against the allegations in court.
Google fired Damore in August after he wrote an internal memo that was later made public in which he said that “genetic differences” may explain “why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.”
Google chief Sundar Pichai said “portions of the memo violate our code of conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace.”
In Friday’s lawsuit, Damore said his memo was intended to remain internal and said he wrote it as a response to a request for feedback about a recent diversity and inclusion summit he attended.
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Three people in South Sudan have died of a suspected viral hemorrhagic fever and 60 of their contacts are being monitored for any infection, the World Health Organization said Monday.
Ebola, Marburg and yellow fever are among viral hemorrhagic fevers that have caused deadly outbreaks in Africa. More than 11,300 people died during the worst outbreak of Ebola, a highly contagious disease, which mainly affected Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone from 2013 to 2016.
The three people in South Sudan — a pregnant woman, a teenage girl and a boy — all died in December and were from the same village in Yirol East county in the eastern Lakes State. But there had been no known contact among them.
No tissue or blood samples were collected from their bodies for analysis, and South Sudan health authorities reported the cases on Dec. 28, the WHO said in a statement.
“The outbreak of suspected viral hemorrhagic fever in South Sudan could rapidly evolve, and critical information including laboratory confirmation of the etiology of disease is needed to direct response efforts,” it said.
National health authorities and WHO are investigating and have found evidence of zoonotic hemorrhagic illness in goats and sheep in the area, including some deaths, as well as deaths among wild birds at the time, it added.
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The death toll from an outbreak of listeria in South Africa has jumped beyond 60 in the past month, health authorities said Monday, adding they had closed a poultry abattoir where the bug that causes the disease had been detected.
Since monitoring of the outbreak began last January, 720 laboratory-confirmed cases of food poisoning due to the disease, also known as listeriosis, have been reported, the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) said.
That was up from 557 in December, since when recorded deaths had risen to 61 from 36.
A food microbiologist said the “alarming” outbreak appeared to be the biggest ever recorded and could spread further if it was not tackled urgently.
“Of the documented outbreaks globally that we know of … our numbers are way above any of those other cases,” said Dr. Lucia Anelich, who runs her own food safety consultancy.
The Department of Health said it had closed a poultry abattoir operated by Sovereign Foods in the capital Pretoria after detecting listeria there, and had banned the facility from preparing food in December.
The department said it did not yet know whether this abattoir was the source of the outbreak, which the NICD said was still unknown.
Sovereign Foods, which delisted from the Johannesburg stock exchange in November, said the prohibition on the abattoir was lifted Monday after the listeria bacterium was not found in the latest samples from the plant.
“Despite being declared clean and free of the listeria bacterium, we are further strengthening steps to render products safer than they already are,” said Sovereign Foods head of production Blaine van Rensburg.
Listeria food poisoning is a bacterial infection that can be treated with antibiotics if diagnosed in time. The bacteria can be found in animal products including cold cut meats, poultry and unpasteurized milk, as well as fresh fruits and vegetables.
The disease can cause flu-like symptoms and diarrhea, and in more severe cases spread from the intestine to the blood, causing bloodstream infections, or to the central nervous system, causing meningitis.
Anelich said a listeriosis strain known as ST6 had been identified in nine out of 10 of the South African cases. That should make tracing the source easier, “because now we know that it probably originates from one processing facility.”
A health department official said the strain was not drug-resistant and that the deaths were due to delays in diagnosis, meaning cases were not treated in time.
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In 2012, Britons delighted in the spectacular opening ceremony of the London Olympics celebrating British history. One of the curtain-raiser’s most popular sequences, drawing loud applause, involved 1,800 dancers and 320 hospital beds honoring the country’s National Health Service.
Six years on, and Britons are more likely to moan about the world’s largest single-payer health care system than praise it.
According to patients, doctors and analysts, the NHS is buckling and close to collapse, with emergency departments over-burdened, hospital wards full and all nonessential operations — more than 55,000 of them — suspended because of a winter surge in demand.
Fueled in part by unseasonably cold weather, an especially virulent flu strain and cuts in social care, leaving hospital beds occupied by the elderly who have nowhere else to go, the winter crisis has brought home to the country the fragile state of the NHS.
Last week, an 81-year-old pensioner suffering chest pains died after waiting four hours for the ambulance service to respond to her emergency call. Patients are being left on gurneys for hours in drafty corridors waiting for beds to become free, and hospitals in the northeast are reporting an outbreak among patients of the gastroenteritis norovirus, dubbed the vomiting bug.
Politics involved
Norman Lamb, a former health minister, blames “tribal politics” for failing to deliver “a solution to the existential challenges facing the NHS and social care.”
“The winter crisis of the past few weeks is unfortunate proof that the current situation is unsustainable, and these pressures will only get worse as we contend with an aging population and rising demand for care and treatment,” he said.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has apologized for the suspension of non-urgent operations and for some emergency departments having to turn away all but the most grave cases, but she insists there isn’t a crisis and the government is on top of things.
Asked during a BBC interview Sunday if she could remember a worse winter crisis, May said, “The NHS has actually been better prepared for this winter pressures than it has been before.” She added, “You mentioned operations being postponed. That was part of the plan.”
May pointed to top-up funding of $450 million announced last month. But her own health minister, Jeremy Hunt, has hinted much more needs to be done to restore the world’s fifth largest employer, and argues it would be better if NHS funding were set on a 10-year time frame.
More than 90 lawmakers have signed a letter calling for a cross-party convention to discuss how the NHS can be funded to cope with a graying population that lives longer. The Center for Policy Studies warned Sunday that money from general taxation won’t be enough to fund the growing pressures of an aging population and increasing demand. “Alternative, additional sources of revenue for the NHS” need to be identified, it argued.
Long view needed
Lord Saatchi, a coauthor of the CPS report, said a long-term funding plan not tied to short-term political objectives is needed.
“The wonderful dream of the NHS is turning into a recurring winter nightmare, and leaving it alone is a recipe for long-term catastrophe,” he said.
The NHS lags behind many of Europe’s other health systems — most funded by a mixture of private and public means — when it comes to medical outcomes. Britain has the most overweight young adults in Europe, with 29 percent of women under 25 classified as obese. Obesity, depression and dementia are all on the rise.
Analysts say the NHS can take partial credit for the rise by about 10 years in life expectancy during the past half century. But it is ill-equipped to deal with one of the spin-offs of increased life expectancy — chronic ill-health.
The service’s annual budget has risen over a hundredfold since its founding in 1948 — its annual budget is $170 billion, about 10 percent of the country’s GDP. But chronic care costs now account for more than 80 percent of the NHS budget. Some analysts are forecasting that treating patients suffering Type 2 diabetes alone will account for 25 percent of the NHS budget by 2025.
The frontline NHS emergency departments are taking more of the strain as other services are cut, including walk-in clinics — 40 percent of which have been closed in recent years. The service is woefully short of family doctors and nurses, whose salaries have been cut, and it is finding it hard in the wake of the Brexit referendum to recruit more from Europe, which supplies a large proportion of the NHS’s junior doctors and nurses.
They say bigger is better, but in the succulent world of cherry tomatoes, one Israeli company is going smaller than ever before.
The “drop tomato” is about the size of a blueberry and the Kedma company in the country’s southern Arava desert says it is the smallest one ever cultivated in Israel, perhaps even in the world. It’s a point of pride in a country known for its agricultural innovation, where fruits and vegetables are taken seriously and where several strands of the cherry tomato were first invented.
“The idea is that it is comfortable,” said Ariel Kidron, a Kedma grower. “You can throw it in a salad, you don’t need to cut it. It just explodes in your mouth.”
The seed, originally developed in Holland, was modified to match the arid growing conditions in southern Israel. Rami Golan, of the Central and Northern Arava Research and Development center, who accompanied the project, said it was definitely the smallest ever to be grown in Israel — where tomatoes are incredibly popular.
The tiny tomato, smaller than a one shekel Israeli coin, is offered in red and yellow varieties and will be presented to the public at a three-day international agricultural fair in Israel later this month. Early indications are it could be a big hit.
Shaul Ben Aderet, a well-known Israeli chef who owns three restaurants, including Tel Aviv’s “Blue Rooster,” got some early samples and says the new strand is packed with flavor and will spawn an infinite number of new recipes. He offered it sizzled in a pan, baked into focaccia bread and as a straight-up snack.
“It’s very simple, it’s clean, it’s nice, it’s sexy,” he said. In a blind taste test alongside two sweets, he said, “they would say the tomato is a candy, that’s for sure.”
Two major Apple investors have urged the iPhone maker to take action to curb growing smartphone addiction among children, highlighting growing concern about the effects of gadgets and social media on youngsters.
New York-based Jana Partners LLC and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or CalSTRS, said Monday in open letter to Apple that the company must offer more choices and tools to help children fight addiction to its devices.
“There is a developing consensus around the world including Silicon Valley that the potential long-term consequences of new technologies need to be factored in at the outset, and no company can outsource that responsibility,” the letter said. “Apple can play a defining role in signaling to the industry that paying special attention to the health and development of the next generation is both good business and the right thing to do.”
The two investors collectively control $2 billion worth of Apple shares.
Among their proposals to Apple: establish an expert committee including child development specialists; offer Apple’s vast information to researchers; and enhance mobile device software so that parents have more options to protect their children’s health.
The letter cited various studies and surveys on how the heavy usage of smartphones and social media negatively affects children’s mental and physical health. Examples include distractions by digital technologies in the classroom, a decreased ability of students to focus on educational tasks, and higher risks of suicide and depression.
The investors’ call reflects growing concerns around the world about what the long-term impact will be of using mobile devices and social media, especially for those who start to use smartphones at an early age.
While tech companies have not acknowledged openly that their gadgets may be addictive, some Silicon Valley insiders have begun to speak to media about how gadgets, mobile applications and social media sites are designed to be addictive and to keep users’ attention as long as possible.
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A group of disabled Egyptians is not letting the lack of having lost a leg get in the way of playing football. They have formed a team they hope will be a part of a soccer league for people with special needs. Faith Lapidus reports.
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A US entrepreneur is taking advantage of a demand for American goods in Africa — creating an online portal for cross border trade between the two countries. As VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
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Coral reefs support nearly a quarter of all marine species, but because of climate change, half of the world’s reefs have disappeared in the past 50 years. With that problem not going away, scientists are looking for ways to make better coral that can resist the rising temperatures. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Packed inside an SUV and heading to Las Vegas, employees of CaptureProof, a San Francisco startup, are part of a time-honored technology industry tradition — attending the giant consumer electronics show that takes over the Las Vegas strip every January.
Starting Monday, more than 180,000 people are expected to attend CES — the show once know as the Consumer Electronics Show — with about one-third of them international visitors. There will be 4,000 exhibitors in every conceivable tech category — gaming, self-driving cars, digital health, digital sports, drones, robots. Outside official CES, many companies set up their own events in hotels throughout Las Vegas.
The result is a crush of people and cars, a cacophony of sounds and logos, as everyone tries to get each others’ attention.
And that is true for CaptureProof, as well. This is its fourth year at CES, the only consumer-focused show that it attends. The small company, which offers an app to help doctors and patients to visually track symptoms, is a regular at medical and investor shows.
But it has to go to CES, says the firm’s CEO. There’s potential partners and clients to meet — and the possibility that a conversation begins on the convention floor that leads to other business in a new direction.
Getting noticed
“Every innovation lead of every company walks through CES and spends at least 24 hours there,” said Meghan Conroy, CaptureProof’s CEO.
Costing $4,500, the 10-foot by 10-foot booth in the Sands Expo will include a make-believe doctor’s waiting room, with old magazines and uncomfortable chairs.
With a message that no one loves doctor’s waiting rooms, the company pitches itself as a more efficient way for doctors and patients to connect outside an in-person visit.
At its booth, a giant smartphone (really a 43-inch TV screen) will show the CaptureProof app as the more appealing alternative to waiting around.
“Getting the right patient to the right doctor is what we are talking about at CES,” Conroy said.
Packing away food, water
Once at CES, the CaptureProof staff has to be self-sustaining, much like going camping, said Conroy.
She has put thought into the details — the thickness of the booth’s floor padding, tables that need to double as storage space, the amount of snacks and water to stow away. The total cost to the company, including the booth, the carpet pads, the staff, hotel and travel is $12,000.
Rising above the fray
From prior years, the company has learned it has to put its logos and company name at least four feet off the ground — to be seen above the masses of people.
Part of the marketing strategy is giving away things affixed with the firm’s logo — bags, pens, stickers — so that people walk around advertising the firm.
Like many who have been to CES, Conroy acknowledges, “It’s awful.”
But she adds: “Everyone is there. You never know who you will meet.”
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What’s the hottest thing in the world of technology these days? Your voice.
Some of the most popular gadgets over the holiday season were smart speakers with digital assistants from Amazon and Google . Apple is coming out with its own speaker this year; Microsoft and Samsung have partnered on another.
As the annual Consumer Electronics Show kicks off in Las Vegas this week, manufacturers are expected to unveil even more voice-controlled devices – speakers and beyond – as Amazon and Google make their digital assistants available on a wider array of products. If these prove popular, you’ll soon be able to order around much more of your house, including kitchen appliances, washing machines and other devices.
CES is expected to draw more than 170,000 people, as some 4,000 exhibitors showcase their wares over the equivalent of nearly 50 football fields, or more than 11 New York city blocks. The show formally opens Tuesday, with media previews starting Sunday.
While major tech companies such as Apple and Google typically don’t make big announcements at CES, their technologies will be powering products and services from startups and other small companies. Expect more gadgets using Google’s Android operating software and Google’s digital assistant, for instance, and products that work with Apple’s HomeKit, a smart-home system getting a boost with the coming launch of Apple’s HomePod smart speaker.
Here’s what else to expect at CES:
Artificial Intelligence
Computers that learn your preferences and anticipate your needs are no longer the stuff of science fiction. Consumers are seeing practical applications in voice-assisted speakers such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home. These systems will get more useful as manufacturers design new ways to control their products with voice commands.
You might also see hints of where AI is heading. Steve Koenig, senior director of market research at CES organizer Consumer Technology Association, says that as more people use these AI systems, companies have more data to better train the machines.
Auto makers will also demonstrate self-driving vehicles propelled by AI. CES is increasing the space for self-driving technologies by more than a third this year. Startups are expected to unveil earphones that promise real-time translations of conversations in different languages, much as Google’s Pixel Buds now do, but only for Google’s Pixel phones. There are also conference sessions devoted to high-tech retailing, including the importance of collecting and analyzing data on customers.
Smart Everything
Cars, lights, washing machines and other everyday items are getting internet connections. That could mean checking what’s left in your fridge from the grocery store, for instance. Expect more appliances and tasks for them to do online.
As more devices get connected, there’s greater concern for security. We’ll likely see more products and services designed to protect these smart-home devices from hacking.
Beyond that, companies will showcase the potential of smartening up entire cities so that maintenance crews can remotely detect roads needing repairs, and motorists can view and reserve parking spaces ahead of time. Better yet, how about traffic lights that aren’t set with timers, but reflect actual traffic and pedestrian flows?
For the first time, CES has an area devoted to smart cities, with more than 40 companies set to exhibit. The smart-cities concept has been making the rounds at several tech shows, but what remains unanswered is when it will actually begin happening – and who will pay for it.
Consumer Gadgets
CES is typically when Samsung, LG and other manufacturers announce their TV lineups for the year. In a bid to get consumers to upgrade sooner, higher-end models will come with fancy technologies going by such names as “4K,” ”HDR” and “OLED.” Many sets will come with voice controls. They will sit alongside basic sets that work just fine for regular viewing.
Don’t expect new iPhones or flagship Galaxy models. Apple and Samsung typically announce those at their own events. But CES is the place for less-known and lower-cost Android phones, along with tablets, laptops and other personal computers, not to mention storage drives and other accessories.
There will also be virtual-reality and augmented-reality technologies, some aimed at sports fans who want to feel they’re more part of the game.
And while a few companies like Apple and Fitbit are currently dominant in wearable devices, many startups are eager to challenge them with new approaches for tracking fitness and medical issues.
There should also be no shortage of flying drones overhead and scurrying robots underfoot. There will even be a robot that folds your laundry – though at a snail’s pace of one shirt every two minutes.
Behind the Scenes
Although CES is about consumer electronics, consumers will never see many of the technologies on display. Network-equipment makers, for instance, might use the show to display technologies for next-generation 5G wireless networks, which promise to be much faster than the existing 4G LTE. Phones that can take advantage of 5G won’t be around for a few more years.
Gary Shapiro, the head of the Consumer Technology Association, said that given the changing nature of technology, about a third of CES is now about back-end business deals rather than direct-to-consumer products.
“Twenty years ago, people bought products sold at retail stores in very defined categories,” he said. “Now every company and business defines itself as a tech company.”
The unpredictable and aggressive nature of wolf-dog hybrids makes them difficult to keep as household pets. But the founders of the Lockwood Animal Rescue Center in California say the dual nature of these animals makes them ideal therapists for combat veterans who suffer from PTSD. VOA’s Genia Dulot has more on the “Wolves and Warriors” program.
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A remote island volcano in Papua New Guinea has begun spewing ash into the air, forcing the evacuation of more than 500 residents, media and nonprofit groups said.
Kadovar Island, a 365-meter (1,197 feet) tall volcano on the north coast of PNG, was thought to be dormant until it began erupting Jan. 5.
“It’s just a continuous emission of volcanic ash at the moment,” Cheyne O’Brien, a forecaster at the Darwin Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre, told Reuters by telephone Sunday.
The ash clouds have been thrown up steadily to a height of 2,133 meters (7,000 feet), forming a plume that is traveling west-northwest, he added.
The plume does not yet pose a hazard to aviation, but a change in wind direction could hit operations at PNG’s Wewak airport, O’Brien said.
All the residents of the island have been evacuated with no loss of life, U.S.-based charity Samaritan Aviation, which operates seaplanes to remote areas of PNG, said on Facebook.
The eruption may become explosive, bringing a risk of tsunamis and landslides, domestic online media Loop PNG quoted the Rabaul Volcanological Observatory as saying.
There are no confirmed records of a previous eruption of Kadovar, said Chris Firth, a volcanologist at Macquarie University, but scientists speculate it could have been one of two “burning islands” mentioned in the journals of a 17th-century English pirate and maritime adventurer, William Dampier.
Dampier may have recorded the last eruption of Kadovar during a voyage in search of “Terra Australis,” the southern continent once thought to be mythical, Firth said.
Volcanologists are interested to observe its behavior now, Firth added.
“It’s hard to predict what might happen, as there’s nothing to compare it to,” he said.
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The World Health Organization classifies alcohol as a “group 1 carcinogen.” That means there is convincing evidence it can cause cancer in humans. But new research shows how alcohol can damage the body on a genetic level. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Dogs are often used in airports to sniff out explosives or illegal drugs. But a high-tech machine has been developed that can “sniff” the air, so baggage handlers and bomb experts can check luggage and containers without touching them. VOA’s Deborah Block has more.
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Eritrea has temporarily shut down nearly 450 private businesses, the latest in a series of moves that has sent shockwaves through the economy of the Red Sea nation.
The closures were a response to companies hoarding cash and “failing to do business through checks and other banking systems,” according to a Dec. 29 editorial published by Eritrea’s Ministry of Information on the state-run website Shabait.com.
Most of the affected businesses operate in the hospitality sector, according to the announcement, and they will remain closed for up to eight months, depending on the severity of the violations.
About 58,000 private businesses operate across the country, according to the government; less than 1 percent was affected by the recent closures.
Replacing the currency
The government has taken other steps in recent years to reassert control over the economy.
In 2015, Eritrea mandated that citizens exchange all notes of the currency, the nakfa, for new notes. The government also imposed financial restrictions, including limits on the amount of cash that could be withdrawn from bank accounts or kept in private hands, according to multiple reports.
Business owners complained about the restrictions, and reports from inside the country indicate the rules have altered Eritrea’s black market exchange rate, which affects the price of many goods.
State control
Tesfa Mehari, a professor of economics in England, said the Eritrean government wants a state-owned economy. That’s a trap many other countries have fallen into that generally leads to economic failure, Mehari said.
“The government cannot develop the economy. Only the people can do that,” Mehari told VOA’s Tigrigna service. “The government can only be a facilitator. There hasn’t been a country in the world that developed because of government control.”
He also said that the closures harm people’s trust in the government and in banking institutions.
“At the end of the day, if the people of Eritrea want to develop the economy of the country, they can only work based on trust, especially with banks. What you have with banks is a matter of oath,” Mehari said.
Compounding this mistrust, he added, is that the government’s actions aren’t backed by a specific law or decree that is publicly available for all to read.
In a statement, the government also acknowledged shortcomings in modernizing its banking sector with up-to-date technology and relevant expertise, another potential impediment to confidence in the system.
In contrast, Ibrahim Ibrahim, an Eritrean-born accountant who supports the government, said the actions are needed to fight inflation and stabilize the currency.
“I don’t think the Eritrean government is trying to control the economy, and I don’t think that’s the current environment,” said Ibrahim, who is based in Washington, D.C. “However, there might be a situation where the government is taking measures to adjust things that are not normal and turn it into normalcy as per usual.”
He said any government has the right to regulate its currency and the businesses operating within its borders.
“When these businesses are given permission to work, that means they’re entering a contract,” he said. “At the core of entering into such agreements is that the businesses work within the legalities and the laws in place. If these businesses are not working according to the law, the government is going to take appropriate measures.”
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The Iranian town of Doroud should be a prosperous place — nestled in a valley at the junction of two rivers in the Zagros Mountains, it’s in an area rich in metals to be mined and stone to be quarried. Last year, a military factory on the outskirts of town unveiled production of an advanced model of tanks.
Yet local officials have been pleading for months for the government to rescue its stagnant economy. Unemployment is around 30 percent, far above the official national rate of more than 12 percent. Young people graduate and find no work. The local steel and cement factories stopped production long ago, and their workers haven’t been paid for months. The military factory’s employees are mainly outsiders who live on its grounds, separate from the local economy.
“Unemployment is on an upward path,” Majid Kiyanpour, the local parliament representative for the town of 170,000, told Iranian media in August. “Unfortunately, the state is not paying attention.”
It’s the economy
That’s a major reason Doroud has been a front line in the protests that have flared across Iran. Several thousand residents have been shown in online videos marching down Doroud’s main street, shouting, “Death to the dictator!” At night, young men set fires outside the gates of the mayor’s office and hurl stones at banks.
Anger and frustration over the economy have been the main fuel for the eruption of protests that began Dec. 28.
President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, had promised that lifting most international sanctions under Iran’s landmark 2015 nuclear deal with the West would revive Iran’s long-suffering economy. But while the end of sanctions did open up a new influx of cash from increased oil exports, little has trickled down to the wider population. At the same time, Rouhani has enforced austerity policies that hit households hard.
Demonstrations have broken out mainly in dozens of smaller cities and towns like Doroud, where unemployment has been most painful and where many in the working class feel ignored.
Fury at ruling class
The working classes have long been a base of support for Iran’s hard-liners. But protesters have turned their fury against the ruling clerics and the elite Revolutionary Guard, accusing them of monopolizing the economy and soaking up the country’s wealth.
Many protests have seen a startlingly overt rejection of Iran’s system of government by Islamic clerics.
“They make a man into god and a nation into beggars!” goes the cry heard in videos of several marches. “Clerics with capital, give us our money back!”
Food prices jump
The initial spark for the protests was a sudden jump in food prices. It is believed that hard-line opponents of Rouhani instigated the first demonstrations in the conservative city of Mashhad in eastern Iran, trying to direct public anger at the president. But as protests spread from town to town, the backlash turned against the entire ruling class.
Further stoking the anger was the budget for the coming year that Rouhani unveiled in mid-December, calling for significant cuts in cash payouts established by Rouhani’s predecessor as a form of direct welfare. Since he came to office in 2013, Rouhani has been paring them back. The budget also envisaged a new jump in fuel prices.
But amid the cutbacks, the budget revealed large increases in funding for religious foundations that are a key part of the clerical state-above-the-state, which receive hundreds of millions of dollars each year from the public coffers.
After the lifting of most sanctions in early 2016, the economy saw a major boost — 13.4 percent growth in the GDP in 2016, compared to a 1.3 percent contraction the year before, according to the World Bank. But almost all that growth was in the oil sector.
Growth outside the oil sector was at 3.3 percent. Major foreign investment has failed to materialize, in part because of continued U.S. sanctions hampering access to international banking and the fear other sanctions could eventually return.
Iran’s official unemployment rate is at 12.4 percent, and unemployment among the young, those 19 to 29, has reached 28.8 percent, according to the government-run Statistical Center of Iran.
The provinces face more economic hardship, but the pain has been felt in the capital, Tehran, and other major cities as well. But there it’s been more cushioned within a large middle class. Many can ignore those picking through trash for food. However, in December 2016, Iranians expressed shock over a series of photographs in a local newspaper showing homeless drug addicts sleeping in open graves in Shahriar, on Tehran’s western outskirts.
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Health experts say the influenza season in the United States is proving to be more severe than usual, with about twice the number of people reporting flu-like illness to their doctors compared with the same time last year.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that in the week ending December 23, 36 states reported widespread flu. The agency said that nearly 2,500 people have been hospitalized for flu-related symptoms and that 13 children have died of the virus in the current season, which started in October.
The CDC said that across the nation, about 5 percent of patients saw their doctors for flu-like symptoms in the week ending December 23, compared with 2.2 percent of patients doing so during the same week in 2016.
Hospitals in California are particularly overwhelmed, with some Southern California pharmacies running out of flu medication. Health officials told the Los Angeles Times on Friday that 27 people younger than 65 had died of the flu in California since October. Only three people died of the flu in the same time period a year ago.
Medical experts say this year’s strain of influenza may just be peaking early in the season. By February last year, flu deaths had gone from the three reported in December to 68.
Experts say it is also possible that this year’s dominant strain, H3N2, is more resistant to treatment than some others. Health officials say more people may be getting ill because the vaccine is less effective against H3N2.
Los Angeles County’s interim health officer, Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, told the Times that this strain of flu causes more hospitalizations and more deaths than other strains that respond better to treatment. He said influenza is especially dangerous for the elderly, who are at greater risk of developing pneumonia or other complications along with the flu — conditions that could be fatal when combined.
Gunzenhauser said vaccination against influenza lowers one’s chances of catching the flu or being a carrier. Also, if the flu does later strike someone who has been vaccinated, his illness is likely to be less severe.
The stakes are low, Gunzenhauser said, noting that the worst side effect from the shot is likely to be “a sore arm.”
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Veteran U.S. astronaut John Young, who walked on the moon and even smuggled a corned beef sandwich into orbit during one of his six missions in space, has died at age 87, NASA said Saturday.
Young, a former Navy test pilot, in 1972 became the ninth of 12 people ever to set foot on the moon.
“We’re saddened by the loss of astronaut John Young,” the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said on Twitter.
The time and cause of Young’s death were not immediately clear.
Young became one of the most accomplished astronauts in the history of the U.S. space program. He flew into space twice during NASA’s Gemini program in the mid-1960s, twice on the Apollo lunar missions and twice on space shuttles in the 1980s.
He retired in 2004 after 42 years with the U.S. space agency.
Moon mission
The Apollo 16 mission in April 1972, his fourth space flight, took Young to the lunar surface.
As mission commander, he and crewmate Charles Duke explored the moon’s Descartes Highlands region, gathering 90 kilograms (200 pounds) of rock and soil samples and driving more than 26 kilometers (16 miles) in the lunar rover to sites such as Spook Crater.
Recalling his lunar exploits, Young told the Houston Chronicle in 2004: “One-sixth gravity on the surface of the moon is just delightful. It’s not like being in zero gravity, you know. You can drop a pencil in zero gravity and look for it for three days. In one-sixth gravity, you just look down and there it is.”
Young’s first time in space came in 1965 with the Gemini 3 mission that took him and astronaut Gus Grissom into Earth orbit in the first two-man U.S. space jaunt. It was on this mission that Young pulled his sandwich stunt, which did not make NASA brass happy but certainly pleased Grissom, the recipient of the snack.
Astronaut Wally Schirra, who was not flying on the mission, bought the corned beef sandwich on rye bread from a delicatessen in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and asked Young to give it to Grissom in space. During the flight, as they discussed the food provided for the mission, Young handed Grissom the sandwich.
NASA later rebuked Young for the antics, which generated criticism from lawmakers and the media, but his career did not suffer.
Rehearsal for moon landing
His May 1969 Apollo 10 mission served as a rehearsal for the historic Apollo 11 mission two months later in which Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon.
Young and his crew undertook each aspect of that subsequent mission except for an actual moon landing.
Young’s fifth space mission was as commander of the inaugural flight of NASA’s first space shuttle, Columbia, in 1981. In 1983, he became the first person to fly six space missions when he commanded Columbia on the first Spacelab trek, with the crew performing more than 70 scientific experiments.
He never went to space again. Young had been due to command a 1986 flight that was canceled after the explosion of the shuttle Challenger earlier that year. He ended up as the only person to fly on space shuttle, Apollo and Gemini missions.
Young was born September 24, 1930, in San Francisco and grew up in Orlando, Florida. After receiving a degree in aeronautical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1952, he entered the Navy and graduated from its test pilot school. NASA picked him in 1962 for its astronaut program.
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Emergency authorities in Australia have released a virtual reality program recreating potentially catastrophic bushfire scenarios. The project aims to encourage residents in the state of Victoria to prepare for extreme danger.
“This emergency warning is being issued for Hare Creek. There is a bushfire at Hare Creek that is out of control. The bushfire is traveling in a north-westerly direction towards Upper Hare Creek,” says the program’s warning.
The virtual reality programs have three different scenarios. They show how residents who leave it too late to respond to an advancing bushfire can face disastrous consequences.
Officials say the technology allows Australians to get a taste of the type of hostile conditions they might face and helps them make better decisions. The simulation urges homeowners to decide early whether to leave, seek shelter, or stay and defend their property.
South-eastern Australia, one of the world’s most fire-prone regions, has been preparing for a scorching weekend with temperatures forecast as high as 45 degrees Celsius.
Victoria state Emergency Management Commissioner, Craig Lapsley, says the bushfire risk in some areas will be extreme.
“Obviously it is about heat, it is about fire. We are going to see a fire today that is going to be hot, dry and windy, and with a wind change late in the day that if we had fires running in the afternoon the wind change will change the direction of the fires and traditionally that is where we lose most of our property after the wind change. So it is one of those days that has got everything in it. Look after yourself, your neighbors, your family, your friends,” Lapsley said.
Australia’s most deadly bushfire killed 173 people in Victoria in 2009. However, Australia’s deadliest natural hazard is extreme heat. More than twice as many victims lost their lives in the heatwave that preceded the so-called ‘Black Saturday’ blazes. It is the very young, the infirm, and those over the age of 75 who are most risk from searing temperatures. Heat-related illness, which can occur when body temperature exceeds 37.8°Celsius, includes dehydration, cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke. The consequences can be catastrophic, resulting in heart attacks, brain damage and death.
Firefighters have been predicting one of the worst fire seasons on record. They say warmer conditions have been coupled with a very dry winter.
Researchers in Europe and the U.S. say the use of social media among preteens and teenagers is on the rise, while internet companies, authorities and parents are slow to recognize its potentially harmful impact. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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