Month: July 2022

The World Health Organization's Europe chief warned Friday that monkeypox cases in the region have tripled in the past two weeks and urged countries to do more to ensure the previously rare disease does not become entrenched on the continent. And African health authorities said they are treating the expanding monkeypox outbreak as an emergency, calling on rich countries to share limited supplies of vaccines to avoid equity problems seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. WHO Europe chief Dr. Hans Kluge said in a statement that increased efforts were needed despite the U.N. health agency's decision last week that the escalating outbreak did not yet warrant being declared a global health emergency. "Urgent and coordinated action is imperative if we are to turn a corner in the race to reverse the…

World leaders must do more to protect the oceans, a major U.N. conference concluded Friday, setting its sights on a new treaty to protect the high seas.  "Greater ambition is required at all levels to address the dire state of the ocean," the U.N. Ocean Conference in Lisbon said in its final declaration.  The meeting in the Portuguese capital — attended by government officials, experts and advocates from 140 countries — is not a negotiating forum. But it sets the agenda for final international negotiations in August on a treaty to protect the high seas — those international waters beyond national jurisdiction.  "Biodiversity loss, the decline of the ocean's health, the way the climate crisis is going ... it all has one common reason, which is ... human behavior, our addiction…

Scientists appear one step closer to predicting volcanic eruptions — a problem that has vexed volcanologists for decades. Research published last week in Nature Geoscience found that using satellite observations to calculate how quickly underground molten rock, or magma, accumulates beneath volcanoes could forecast certain eruptions weeks or months in advance.      "Any kind of information we can use to get at this forecasting thing is going to be important, because the more time you have to warn people that they can take some action, the more you can decrease the impacts of eruptions," volcanologist Michael Poland of the United States Geological Survey told VOA. "That's all we have, really, in terms of decreasing eruption impacts — to get out of the way."      Most volcanoes don't erupt…

Weeks after acknowledging its first coronavirus infections, North Korea appears to be blaming the outbreak on balloons sent by defector-activists in South Korea. North Korean officials said Friday they traced the outbreak to an inter-Korean border region, where an 18-year-old soldier and a 5-year-old child came into contact with “alien things” in early April. The statement, published in the state-run Korean Central News Agency, did not specify what the objects were, but later warned residents to be on the lookout for balloons and other “alien things” in the area. North Korean officials have long warned the coronavirus could enter the country through novel means, including through migratory birds, snow, air pollution or anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets sent by South Korean activists. Earlier this week, South Korea-based defector Park Sang-hak said he…