Feb122020 by DmediaNo Comments

High Hopes for Lesotho’s Budding Cannabis Industry

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High in the mountains of Lesotho, a green revolution is growing.  The tiny mountain kingdom, which is surrounded on all sides by South Africa, made history in 2017 by being the first African country to issue licenses for the production of medical cannabis.Marijuana is not new to Lesotho — it’s been used for centuries for medicine and recreation. The area's high elevation, low humidity and abundant arable land make it an ideal place to grow.  But by issuing production licenses, Lesotho's government has thrown open the door for a new industry — and brought in millions of dollars from foreign investors.  MG Health, one of the top five local producers, built a $23 million facility in the hills of Marakabei. It employs 380 people, many from the local area, where…


Feb122020 by DmediaNo Comments

Coronavirus Death Toll More than 1,100

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Chinese health officials reported Wednesday the number of dead from a coronavirus outbreak has risen to more than 1,100.The National Health Commission figures included 97 new deaths and a total of 44,653 people confirmed infected since the outbreak began last month.  Some experts have cast doubts about whether the total number of cases are being counted.If the figures are accurate, there would be some semblance of optimism with the 2,105 new cases confirmed Tuesday, a number that was lower than those reported the past few days.While most of the coronavirus cases are within mainland China, hundreds have been confirmed sick in dozens of other countries, usually after traveling from China.The biggest grouping of cases is on board a cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan, where 174 of the 3,700 people on…


Feb122020 by TechmanNo Comments

Asia Catches up on AI but Digital Divide Remains Between Rich and Poor

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The earliest fans of the internet wondered if it could be a democratizing technology, giving all people access to information, regardless of their income, social status, or level of freedom under their governments. Today another computer technology -- artificial intelligence -- raises similar questions, depending on whether it will bring benefits for all, or worsen the inequality already in place.A new report, jointly released by Google, INSEAD business school, and Adecco recruiters, tackles those questions by ranking nations and cities based on how well they attract people to their workforce by investing in technology like AI. Asian nations shot up the Global Talent Competitiveness Index in 2020 compared to 2019, particularly developing nations. That has led observers to a two-pronged conclusion marked by cautious optimism: on the one hand, poorer…


Feb122020 by TechmanNo Comments

Samsung Unveils its New Foldable Phone, the Galaxy Z Flip

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Samsung on Tuesday unveiled a new foldable phone, the Galaxy Z Flip, its second attempt to sell consumers on phones with bendable screens and clamshell designs.The company announced the phone at the start of a product event in San Francisco. The new phone can unfold from a small square upward into a traditional smartphone form, and will go on sale Feb. 14 starting at $1,380.Samsung's first foldable phone, the Galaxy Fold, finally went on sale last September after delays and reports of screens breaking. The Fold, which carries a price tag of nearly $2,000, folds at a vertical crease rather than horizontally as a flip-phone design would. Motorola has also taken the flip-phone approach with its new $1,500 Razr phone.The foldable phones represent manufacturers' attempt to energize a market where…


Feb112020 by TechmanNo Comments

Here’s Where the Internet Actually Lives

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Have you ever stored something in the cloud and wondered where that data goes?  You might be surprised to learn it's in a quiet residential community about 30 miles outside the capital city of Washington, where people jog or walk their dogs around human-made lakes, children's teams practice on soccer fields, and teens play pick-up basketball on community courts.  The majority of the world's internet traffic passes through the town of Ashburn in Loudoun County, Virginia, home to one of the world's major internet exchanges.  "It's amazing when you think about the amount of fiber that's in the ground," says Buddy Rizer, executive director of economic development for Loudoun County. "Both sides of the road pretty much have fiber troughs in them. And now we're putting some fiber in the…


Feb112020 by DmediaNo Comments

China Struggles to Cope with Surging Numbers of Infected Coronavirus Patients

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China’s health care system is struggling to cope with the surging number of patients infected by the deadly coronavirus despite that Chinese President Xi Jingping has re-emerged in public to call for greater confidence in his government.   FILE - A man bowing in front of flowers and a photo of the late ophthalmologist Li Wenliang outside the Houhu Branch of Wuhan Central Hospital in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province, Feb. 7, 2020.The death toll Tuesday totaled 1,018 worldwide among the more than 43,000 confirmed infections; 974 deaths, or 96% of the total, occurred in Wuhan city, in China’s Hubei province — signs that hospitals in the epic center of the outbreak have been overwhelmed.The latest report on the American Medical Association’s website found that out of the city’s 138 virus-infected…


Feb112020 by DmediaNo Comments

‘Take Us Out of the Country’: African Students Plead for Evacuation as Coronavirus Spreads

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As the death toll from the coronavirus continues to mount in China and elsewhere, thousands of African students in China count the hours hoping that their governments will evacuate them.Solomon Yohannes of Ethiopia, a third-year engineering student at Wuchang Technology University in the Wuhan region of China, the epicenter of the outbreak, sat in a room in a nearly deserted campus. He said virtually all of Wuchang’s 15,000 students have left, but about 200 foreigners, mostly Africans, remain. “We are counting on the next two to three days for some solution,” he told VOA’s Afaan Oromo service. Until then he and others will remain secluded. “If you leave, you have to wear all the protective gear,” he said.Another student at Wuchang called on the Ethiopian government to take action. “We want…


Feb112020 by TechmanNo Comments

German Decision on Huawei 5G ‘Imminent,’ Says Ambassador

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Germany’s closely watched impending decision on whether and to what extent to allow Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, to enter its next generation telecommunications infrastructure may yield a result as early as Tuesday, sources tell VOA.The decision “is imminent,” says Emily Haber, German ambassador to the United States, in answer to a question raised by VOA Monday afternoon concerning the German government’s stance with regard to Huawei.“Any decision we take will factor in the relevance of the trustworthiness of the provider,” Haber added.VOA has since learned from diplomatic sources that “imminent” could mean as early as Tuesday February 11th when German lawmakers convene in Berlin.Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, thinks Germany could end up following Britain’s precedence and reach a compromise…


Feb112020 by DmediaNo Comments

New Coronavirus Transmissions Raise More Concerns as Deaths Surpass Those From SARS

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The head of the World Health Organization's says there are "concerning instances" of coronavirus transmission from people who have not traveled to China, a development that could mean there is a bigger problem. This comes as a WHO team of medical experts arrived in China on Monday and the death toll surpassed that of the SARS’ epidemic in 2002/2003. According to WHO's latest data, there are now over 40,000 confirmed cases in China and more than 1,000 deaths. Outside of China, there are 319 confirmed cases and there has been one death in Philippines. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports. ...


Feb102020 by DmediaNo Comments

Safety Advocates in Malaysia Push for Greater Use of Child Safety Seats

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While waiting for his 5-year-old twins to get out of school one afternoon, Raj Rajoo got their child safety seats ready. “My kids, their lives are very important for me so I invested in the car seats,” he said.Malaysia has been requiring the use of child safety seats — also known as child restraint systems — since January 1 but Rajoo and his wife, Jay Menon, have been using them since shortly after their children were born. “Anything can happen in a split second and we don’t want to regret anything further on down the road,” Menon said.A study conducted last year in Malaysia found that less than half of the cars on the roads with children ages 12 and under had child safety seats. (Dave Grunebaum/VOA)Researchers in Malaysia found last year…


Feb102020 by TechmanNo Comments

Amazon Wants Trump Deposition Over Loss of Military Contract

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Amazon wants to depose President Donald Trump over the tech company's losing bid for a $10 billion military contract. The Pentagon awarded the cloud computing project to Microsoft in October. Amazon later sued, arguing that Trump's interference and bias against the company harmed Amazon's chances of winning the contract.The company said in a federal court filing in Washington on Monday that Trump has a "well-documented personal animus towards" Amazon, its CEO Jeff Bezos and The Washington Post, which Bezos owns. Amazon says that Trump is the only who can testify about the "totality of his conversations and the overall message he conveyed" about the bidding process.Amazon is also asking to depose Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other government officials in its filing Monday with the…


Feb102020 by DmediaNo Comments

Drugs Fail to Slow Decline in Inherited Alzheimer’s Disease

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Two experimental drugs failed to prevent or slow mental decline in a study of people who are virtually destined to develop Alzheimer's disease at a relatively young age because they inherited rare gene flaws.The results announced Monday are another disappointment for the approach that scientists have focused on for years — trying to remove a harmful protein that builds up in the brains of people with Alzheimer's, the leading cause of dementia."We actually don't even know yet what the drugs did" in term of removing that protein because those results are still being analyzed, said study leader Dr. Randall Bateman at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.But after five years on average, the main goal of the study was not met: people on either of the drugs scored about the same…


Feb92020 by DmediaNo Comments

WHO: The Ebola Epidemic in DR Congo May Be Nearing its End

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The World Health Organization reports progress is being made in combating the Ebola epidemic in the conflict-ridden North Kivu and Ituri provinces in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.  The latest number of reported cases stands at 3,429, including 2,251 deaths — a fatality rate of 66%. FILE - Burial workers dressed in protective gear carry the remains of an Ebola victim in Beni, DRC, July 14, 2019.The global fixation on the evolution of the novel coronavirus has knocked the DRC’s Ebola epidemic out of the media's spotlight.  However, health officials working in the shadows have been making steady progress in slowing the transmission of this deadly virus.WHO's regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, tells VOA the situation in the country is very different now than it was a few months…


Feb92020 by DmediaNo Comments

Study: Indonesians Embrace FGM as Religious, Traditional Practice  

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With a knife, a razor blade, scissors or a needle, half of Indonesia’s girls are circumcised, and a new study found that it is a tradition more rooted in family folkways than religion.“Cultural reproduction occurs in the household,” said Sri Purwatiningsih, a researcher of Center for Population and Policy Studies at Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta. “Circumcised grandmothers tend to circumcise their daughter. A mother who was circumcised by the grandmothers will most likely circumcise their daughter.”Purwatiningsih presented her findings Thursday, the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, at the university, where the center refers to the procedure as female genital mutilation or cutting.Indonesia ranks third in the world, at 49%, for the rate of prevalence of female circumcision, after Mali, at 83%, and Mauritania, at 51%.…


Feb82020 by DmediaNo Comments

Experience Handling Ebola Epidemic May Help Africa Dodge Coronavirus Bullet

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The World Health Organization is scaling up measures to keep Africa free of the deadly coronavirus by shoring up the continent’s fragile health system and increasing preparedness efforts to tackle the potential spread of the dangerous virus to the continent.    In its latest update on February 8, the WHO reported 34,958 cases, including 724 deaths inside China and 270 cases in 24 countries, including two deaths outside mainland China, in the Philippines and Hong Kong.The novel coronavirus has been moving with breathtaking speed since it was first detected in China’s city of Wuhan in December. While the number of cases of the pneumonia-like illness has been expanding to more countries around the world, so far it has not gained a foothold in the African region.  But that is of little…


Feb82020 by DmediaNo Comments

Ebola Epidemic May Help Africa Dodge the Coronavirus Bullet

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The World Health Organization is scaling up measures to keep Africa free of the deadly coronavirus by shoring up the continent’s fragile health system and by increasing preparedness efforts to tackle the potential spread of the dangerous virus to the continent.    WHO reports 31,211 cases, including 637 deaths inside China, and 270 cases in 24 countries and two deaths outside mainland China.The novel coronavirus has been moving with breathtaking speed since it was first detected in China’s Wuhan city in December.  While this pneumonia-like illness has been expanding to more countries around the world, it so far has not penetrated Africa.  This is of little comfort to WHO Regional Director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti.  She tells VOA watching the virus reach other continents around the world is of great concern.…


Feb82020 by TechmanNo Comments

Cyborgs, Trolls and Bots: A Guide to Online Misinformation

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Cyborgs, trolls and bots can fill the internet with lies and half-truths. Understanding them is key to learning how misinformation spreads online.As the 2016 election showed, social media is increasingly used to amplify false claims and divide Americans over hot-button issues including race and immigration. Researchers who study misinformation predict it will get worse leading up to this year’s presidential vote. Here’s a guide to understanding the problem:MISINFORMATION VS. DISINFORMATIONPolitical misinformation has been around since before the printing press, but the internet has allowed falsehoods, conspiracy theories and exaggerations to spread faster and farther than ever.Misinformation is defined as any false information, regardless of intent, including honest mistakes or misunderstandings of the facts. Disinformation, on the other hand, typically refers to misinformation created and spread intentionally as a way to…


Feb82020 by DmediaNo Comments

Solar Probe to Launch Sunday on Mission to Map Sun’s Polar Regions

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A new spacecraft built jointly by U.S. and European space agencies is ready for a blazing journey to the sun to capture an unprecedented view of its two poles, an angle that could help researchers understand how the star’s vast bubble of magnetic energy affects Earth.The Solar Orbiter spacecraft will lift off from a Florida launch pad Sunday at 11:03 p.m. EST (0400 GMT Monday) and autonomously unfold an array of solar panels and antennas before carrying on toward the sun for a 10-year mission mapping its polar regions.Mapping the sun’s poles could allow scientists for the first time to observe the concentrated source of solar wind — a stream of plasma and charged particles that beam outward and sustains the solar system’s protective outer bubble that breathes in and…


Feb72020 by DmediaNo Comments

Research Base in Antarctica Records Hottest Temperature on Record

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Researchers at a base in the Antarctic say they have recorded the hottest temperature there since readings began more than 60 years ago.The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said Friday the Argentine research base recorded a high of 18.3 C (64.9 F) on Thursday. The agency said that tops a former record of 17.5 C in March 2015.A WMO official, Randal Cerveny, said Friday the agency still must verify the recording taken at the base but said, “Everything we have seen thus far indicates a likely legitimate record.”He said the high temperature appears to have been caused by a rapid warming of air coming down a mountain slope.Researchers at Argentina’s Esperanza base on the northern tip of Antarctica, near South America, have been recording temperatures there since 1961.The WMO says the Antarctic…


Feb72020 by TechmanNo Comments

Students Explore Virtual Reality

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Virtual Reality, which immerses viewers in three-dimensional computer-generated worlds, is transforming many fields, from entertainment to education. Mike O'Sullivan reports from a California college, where students are exploring some new applications for so-called VR technology. ...


Feb72020 by DmediaNo Comments

UN Aims to End Female Genital Mutilation by 2030

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U.N. agencies warn that the widespread prevalence of female genital mutilation is exacting a heavy toll in both human and economic terms. The U.N. is calling for an end to the practice by 2030. Around 200 million girls and women alive today are suffering the physical and psychological effects of female genital mutilation. The practice mainly occurs in Africa and the Middle East.The director of the U.N. Population Fund's Geneva office, Monica Ferro, said FGM has no medical benefits, only devastating consequences. She told VOA that women and girls who have undergone the procedure suffer long-term physical and psychological harm."It often leads to bleeding, to infections, to infertility and to complications that will endure a lifetime, be it by urinal infections, by complications while delivering, while giving birth … sometimes it…


Feb62020 by TechmanNo Comments

US Prosecutors Eye Uptick In Chinese Economic Espionage Cases 

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The FBI is conducting about 1,000 investigations into suspected Chinese theft of U.S. intellectual property, with many expected to lead to criminal charges against individuals and companies later in the year, U.S. law enforcement officials said Thursday.The investigations involve all 56 FBI field offices across the country and span nearly every industry and sector of the U.S. economy, from large Fortune 100 companies to Silicon Valley startups, FBI Director Christopher Wray said."They're not just targeting defense sector companies," Wray said at a conference on the Justice Department's China Initiative. "They're also targeting cutting-edge research at our universities."FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies during an oversight hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, on Capitol Hill, Feb. 5, 2020 in Washington.The China Initiative, unveiled in November 2018, combines DOJ and FBI resources into…


Feb62020 by DmediaNo Comments

Walter Reed Prosthetics Chief Allegedly Took Sports Tickets

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A federal grand jury has indicted the former chief of prosthetics and orthotics at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.      Court records show David Laufer pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to five counts of making a false statement. The office of the U.S. Attorney in Maryland said Wednesday that the 63-year-old Pittsburgh resident failed to report financial benefits, including travel and tickets to sporting events, he received from an unidentified company that supplied prosthetics and orthotics materials to the hospital in Bethesda.      Authorities say Laufer was the facility's chief of prosthetics until May and was required to disclose to the government outside income sources greater than $200, travel-related reimbursements or other gifts worth more than $350.      The charging document alleges that the owner of…


Feb62020 by DmediaNo Comments

Female Genital Mutilation Still Prevalent in West Africa

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February 6 is the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. The practice, also known as female circumcision or cutting, poses serious health risks but remains common in many countries, particularly in West Africa.More than 200 million women and girls who are alive today have been cut, according to the World Health Organization, putting them in danger of excessive bleeding, infection and death.As circumcised girls enter adulthood, they are at risk of chronic problems such as mental health disorders and pain during urination or sex. FGM also may cause life-threatening complications during childbirth.Despite these risks, the practice has continued largely in the name of culture and tradition. Some communities believe FGM helps prevent premarital sex and helps ensure a wife's fidelity by reducing her libido.FGM is practiced in…