Jun252023 by DmediaNo Comments

Cocaine Market Booming as Meth Trafficking Spreads, UN Report Says

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Cocaine demand and supply are booming worldwide, and methamphetamine trafficking is expanding beyond established markets, including in Afghanistan where the drug is now being produced, a United Nations report said Sunday. Coca bush cultivation and total cocaine production were at record highs in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, and the global number of cocaine users, estimated at 22 million that same year, is growing steadily, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said in its annual World Drug Report. Cocaine seizures have, however, grown faster than production, containing the total supply to some extent, the report said. The upper band of the estimated total supply was higher in the mid-2000s than now. "The world is currently experiencing a prolonged surge in both supply and demand…


Jun252023 by DmediaNo Comments

Priced Out of Health Care, Some Iraqis Turn to Natural Remedies

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When a pharmacist in Iraq told Umm Mohammed her prescription for a skin ailment would cost about $611, she turned to cheaper natural remedies as some of her relatives had done. In an herbal remedy shop, the 34-year-old mother-of-two found a treatment eight times cheaper. "Pharmacies are a disaster at the moment, poor people turn to medicinal herbs because of the prices," she said. "Who can afford this? Should one die? So you turn to medicinal herbs." Ibrahim al-Jabouri, the shop's owner and a professor of pharmacology, told Reuters that he is receiving customers suffering from various health issues, such as skin diseases, bowel troubles, colon infections or hair loss. While some Iraqis choose alternative treatments out of conviction, others have no other choice as they can't afford the cost…


Jun252023 by DmediaNo Comments

‘Street Vet’ Seeks Out California’s Homeless to Care for Their Pets

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An elevated train clangs along tracks above Dr. Kwane Stewart as the veterinarian makes his way through a chain link gate to ask a man standing near a parked RV whether he might know of any street pets in need. Michael Evans immediately goes for his 11-month-old pit bull, Bear, his beloved companion living beneath the rumbling San Francisco Bay Area commuter trains. "Focus. Sit. That's my boy," Evans instructs the high-energy pup as he eagerly accepts Stewart's offer. A quick check of the dog reveals a moderate ear infection that could have made Bear so sick in a matter of weeks he might have required sedation. Instead, right there, Dr. Stewart applies a triple treatment drop of antibiotic, anti-fungal and steroids that should start the healing process. "This is…


Jun242023 by DmediaNo Comments

Want a Climate-friendly Flight? It’s Going to Take a While and Cost You More

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When it comes to flying, going green may cost you more. And it's going to take a while for the strategy to take off.  Sustainability was a hot topic this week at the Paris Air Show, the world's largest event for the aviation industry, which faces increasing pressure to reduce the climate-changing greenhouse gases that aircraft spew.  Even the massive orders at the show got an emissions-reduction spin: Airlines and manufacturers said the new planes will be more fuel-efficient than the ones they replace.  But most of those planes will burn conventional, kerosene-based jet fuel. Startups are working feverishly on electric-powered aircraft, but they won't catch on as quickly as electric vehicles.  "It's a lot easier to pack a heavy battery into a vehicle if you don't have to lift…


Jun242023 by TechmanNo Comments

Lean Green Flying Machines Take Wing in Paris, Heralding Transport Revolution

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Just a dot on the horizon at first, the bug-like and surprisingly quiet electrically-powered craft buzzes over Paris and its traffic snarls, treating its doubtless awestruck passenger to privileged vistas of the Eiffel Tower and the city's signature zinc-grey rooftops before landing him or her with a gentle downward hover. And thus, if all goes to plan, could a new page in aviation history be written. After years of dreamy and not always credible talk of skies filled with flying, nonpolluting electric taxis, the aviation industry is preparing to deliver a future that it says is now just around the corner. Capitalizing on its moment in the global spotlight, the Paris region is planning for a small fleet of electric flying taxis to operate on multiple routes when it hosts…


Jun242023 by DmediaNo Comments

Canada Opens Investigation Into Submersible Implosion

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The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has opened an investigation into the implosion of the Titan, the underwater sea vessel that imploded with five people onboard as it was traveling to the wreckage of the Titanic, the British ocean liner that sank in the North Atlantic in 1912 after striking an iceberg. The submersible vessel was the property of OceanGate Expeditions, a U.S.-based company. Its support ship, Polar Prince, however, is a Canadian-flagged ship. “The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is launching an investigation into the fatal occurrence involving the Canadian-flagged vessel Polar Prince and the privately operated submersible Titan,” the board said in a statement Friday, raising questions about the safety of the ill-fated excursion. The board said a team of investigators has been sent to St. John’s,…


Jun242023 by DmediaNo Comments

Declassified US Intelligence Answers Few Questions on COVID-19 Origins

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Newly declassified intelligence on the origins of the coronavirus pandemic appears to cast doubt on theories that the outbreak that killed millions around the world began at a research laboratory in Wuhan, China. A report issued late Friday by U.S. intelligence agencies and shared with members of Congress said that despite concerns about biosafety measures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and despite its history of work with coronaviruses, there is no intelligence that indicates COVID-19 was present in the lab before the outbreak. "We continue to have no indication that the WIV's pre-pandemic research holdings included SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID pandemic," according to the report…


Jun232023 by TechmanNo Comments

Indian PM Modi Wraps Up Washington Trip With Appeal to Tech CEOs 

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with U.S. and Indian technology executives in Washington on Friday, the final day of a state visit where he agreed to new defense and technology cooperation and addressed challenges posed by China.  U.S. President Joe Biden rolled out the red carpet for Modi on Thursday, declaring after about 2-1/2 hours of talks that their countries' economic relationship was "booming." Trade has more than doubled over the past decade.  Biden and Modi gathered with CEOs including Apple's Tim Cook, Google's Sundar Pichai and Microsoft's Satya Nadella.  Also present were Sam Altman of OpenAI, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, and Indian tech leaders including Anand Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra Group, and Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, the White House said.  "Our partnership between India and the…


Jun232023 by DmediaNo Comments

Carter Center Celebrates Elimination of Trachoma in Mali

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In May, the World Health Organization certified that the countries of Benin and Mali eliminated trachoma as a public health problem, the fifth and sixth African countries to do so. As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, while the Carter Center is celebrating the milestone in Mali, its work in eliminating and eradicating trachoma in Ethiopia, Niger, South Sudan and Sudan continues. ...


Jun232023 by DmediaNo Comments

Carter Center Celebrates Trachoma Elimination Milestone in Mali 

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The Carter Center was already a decade into its fight against Guinea worm globally when former President Jimmy Carter and his nonprofit took on another neglected tropical disease in the African nation of Mali. “From 1996 to 1998, it was estimated about 85,000 to 90,000 people would go blind from trachoma,” said Kelly Callahan, director of the Carter Center’s trachoma control program. “Twenty-five[%] to 50% of the children between the ages of 1 and 9, in all areas of Mali, suffered from the beginning stages of this disease.” It was a statistic Callahan said troubled Carter. “The Hilton Foundation asked President Carter and the Carter Center if we would be willing to consider working on sanitation and water to combat this disease called trachoma in Mali and Niger,” she said.…


Jun232023 by TechmanNo Comments

Big Names in Fashion, Tech, Entertainment Attend DC Dinner for India’s Modi

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Titans of business, fashion, entertainment and more made the guest list for Thursday's big White House dinner in honor India's Narendra Modi, with the likes of designer Ralph Lauren, filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan and tennis legend Billie Jean King rubbing shoulders with tech leaders from Apple, Google and Microsoft.  Shyamalan powered past reporters as he arrived, declaring it was "lovely" to be at the White House. Lauren revealed he'd designed first lady Jill Biden's off-shoulder green gown for the occasion, calling her style "chic and elegant." And violinist Joshua Bell, part of the after-dinner entertainment, said the evening was a "little different than anything I've done before."  "I'll skip out and practice for half an hour" during dinner, he reported.  Saris and sequins were prominent among those attending the splashy…


Jun222023 by DmediaNo Comments

A Year After Fall of Roe, 25 Million Women Live in States With Abortion Bans or Tighter Restrictions 

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One year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court rescinded a five-decade-old right to abortion, prompting a seismic shift in debates about politics, values, freedom and fairness. Twenty-five million women of childbearing age now live in states where the law makes abortions harder to get than they were before the ruling. Decisions about the law are largely in the hands of state lawmakers and courts. Most Republican-led states have restricted abortion. Fourteen ban abortion in most cases at any point in pregnancy. Twenty Democratic-leaning states have protected access. Here’s a look at what’s changed since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling. Laws enacted in 25 states to ban or restrict abortion access Last summer, as women and medical providers began to navigate a landscape without legal protection for abortion, Nancy…


Jun222023 by DmediaNo Comments

Study Reveals How Immune System of Astronauts Breaks Down

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Evidence is growing about the many ways that traveling in the microgravity environment of space tampers with the human body, with new research showing how it dials down the activity of genes in white blood cells crucial to the immune system. A study involving 14 astronauts who spent 4½ to 6½ months aboard the International Space Station found that gene expression in these cells, also called leukocytes, quickly decreased when they reached space and then returned to normal not long after returning to Earth, researchers said Thursday. The findings offer insight into why astronauts are more susceptible to infections during flights, showing how the body's system for fighting off pathogens is weakened in space. "A weaker immunity increases the risk of infectious diseases limiting astronauts' ability to perform their very…


Jun212023 by DmediaNo Comments

US CDC Advisers Recommend RSV Shots Be Available to Older Adults

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A panel of advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday recommended that new vaccines from Pfizer and GSK to prevent severe respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections be available to older adults in the U.S. but stopped short of saying all of them should get the shots. In two separate votes, the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) said that people aged 60 and older may receive the RSV shots after consulting with a health care provider. It was not the strongest recommendation that the ACIP could have made for the shots. Some committee members wanted a broader recommendation, but others had concerns that there was not enough data about how effective the vaccines are in people over age 75 and other high-risk groups.…


Jun212023 by DmediaNo Comments

Summer Solstice Has Arrived

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In astronomical terms, summer begins Wednesday with the arrival of the summer solstice, which marks the longest day of the year for everyone north of the equator.  This year, the summer solstice falls at exactly 10:57 a.m. EDT, when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer. South of the equator, the same time marks the astronomical start of winter.  On two moments each year, Earth's axis tilts the most toward the sun. The hemisphere that tilts closer to the sun experiences its longest day, whereas the hemisphere that tilts away from the sun experiences its longest night.  The summer solstice takes place between June 20 and 22 each year. By meteorological standards, summer for the Northern Hemisphere begins on June 1.  This year, the winter solstice will take…


Jun212023 by DmediaNo Comments

US OKs Chicken Made From Cultivated Cells, Nation’s First ‘Lab-Grown’ Meat

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For the first time, U.S. regulators on Wednesday approved the sale of chicken made from animal cells, allowing two California companies to offer "lab-grown" meat to the nation's restaurant tables and, eventually, supermarket shelves.  The Agriculture Department gave the green light to Upside Foods and Good Meat, firms that had been racing to be the first in the U.S. to sell meat that doesn't come from slaughtered animals — what's now being referred to as "cell-cultivated" or "cultured" meat as it emerges from the laboratory and arrives on dinner plates.  The move launches a new era of meat production aimed at eliminating harm to animals and drastically reducing the environmental impacts of grazing, growing feed for animals and animal waste.  "Instead of all of that land and all of that…


Jun192023 by DmediaNo Comments

Sickle Cell Advocates in Nigeria Urge Authorities to Take Firm Stand on Interventions

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As the world mark Sickle Cell Day on Monday, Nigeria accounts for about 33% of the 300,000 children diagnosed every year with the disease. The World Health Organization and Nigeria's Health Ministry say 25% of the country's total population are carriers of mutant genes that give rise to the genetic disorder. In 2011, Nigeria's Health Ministry initiated mandatory screening for newborns to help detect the condition early, but many Nigerian hospitals have yet to comply with the directive. Anna Ochigbo of Nigeria has lost two siblings to sickle cell anemia. In May 2022, Ochigbo launched the nonprofit Hoplites Sickle Cell Foundation in memory of her siblings.  "We don't just create awareness on the importance of genotype testing before marriage," she said. "We go as far as conducting free genotype testing…


Jun192023 by DmediaNo Comments

UN Members Adopt First-Ever Treaty to Protect Marine Life in High Seas

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Members of the United Nations adopted the first-ever treaty to protect marine life in the high seas on Monday, with the U.N.'s chief hailing the historic agreement as giving the ocean "a fighting chance." Delegates from the 193 member nations burst into applause and then stood up in a sustained standing ovation when Singapore's ambassador on ocean issues, Rena Lee, who presided over the negotiations, banged her gavel after hearing no objections to the treaty's approval. The treaty to protect biodiversity in waters outside national boundaries, known as the high seas, covering nearly half of earth's surface, had been under discussion for more than 20 years as efforts to reach an agreement had repeatedly stalled. But in March delegates to an intergovernmental conference established by the U.N. General Assembly in…


Jun192023 by DmediaNo Comments

Malawi Controls Deadliest Cholera Outbreak in History

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Malawi is emerging victorious in its battle against the deadliest cholera outbreak in the country's history, which has killed nearly 2,000 people since its onset in March of last year. Health authorities say the country has seen a steady decline in the death rate, with no new cases or hospitalizations for the past two weeks. A cholera report, which Malawi's health ministry released Sunday, shows that the outbreak has been fully controlled in 21 districts. These include Chitipa, Dowa, Kasungu, Likoma, Mzimba South, Mzimba North, Mwanza, Nkhata Bay, Ntchisi, Phalombe and Lilongwe, which reported most of the cases. Minister of Health Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda said in a statement that a few areas are still reporting cases. These areas include Balaka, Blantyre, Chikwawa, Machinga, Nsanje, Ntcheu, Salima and Zomba. George Mbotwa,…


Jun192023 by TechmanNo Comments

Submarine Exploring Titanic Wreck Missing, Search Underway

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A submarine on a tourism expedition to explore the wreckage of the Titanic has gone missing off the coast of southeastern Canada, according to the private company that operates the vessel. OceanGate Expeditions said in a brief statement on Monday that it was "mobilizing all options" to rescue those on board the vessel. It was not immediately clear how many people were missing. The U.S. Coast Guard did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Media reports said the Coast Guard has launched search-and-rescue operations. "We are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to reestablish contact with the submersible," OceanGate said in a statement. The company is currently operating its fifth Titanic "mission" of 2023, according…


Jun192023 by TechmanNo Comments

Netherlands Soon to Announce Controls on IT Exports to China

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The Dutch government is soon to join the United States and Japan in rolling out new semiconductor export control measures aimed at keeping sensitive technology away from China due to concern for potential misuse, the country’s economic affairs minister told reporters on a visit to Washington. The measures are likely to further restrict sales to China by Netherlands-based ASML, maker of the world’s most advanced chip-printing machines, which last year disclosed the “unauthorized misappropriation of data” by a now former employee in China. The United States in October 2022 announced its own export control measures affecting advanced computing integrated circuits and certain semiconductor manufacturing items. The U.S. said the measures were aimed at items that “could provide direct contributions to advancing military decision making” such as “designing and testing weapons…


Jun192023 by DmediaNo Comments

Venezuelans Lack Access to HPV Vaccine

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Getting vaccinated is an effective way to prevent infection from human papillomavirus, also known as HPV, a virus that can lead to cervical cancer in women and other cancers in men. But the vaccine is neither available nor affordable to many in Venezuela. For Adriana Nunez Rabascall in Caracas, Venezuela, Cristina Caicedo Smit narrates the story. Camera - Jackson Vodopija. ...


Jun182023 by DmediaNo Comments

Microsoft Says Early June Disruptions to Outlook, Cloud Platform, Were Cyberattacks 

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In early June, sporadic but serious service disruptions plagued Microsoft's flagship office suite — including the Outlook email and OneDrive file-sharing apps — and cloud computing platform. A shadowy hacktivist group claimed responsibility, saying it flooded the sites with junk traffic in distributed denial-of-service attacks. Initially reticent to name the cause, Microsoft has now disclosed that DDoS attacks by the murky upstart were indeed to blame. But the software giant has offered few details — and did not immediately comment on how many customers were affected and whether the impact was global. A spokeswoman confirmed that the group that calls itself Anonymous Sudan was behind the attacks. It claimed responsibility on its Telegram social media channel at the time. Some security researchers believe the group to be Russian. Microsoft’s explanation…


Jun182023 by DmediaNo Comments

Secret Washington Garden Has Vital Government Mission

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Nestled among the bustling city streets of Washington is a hidden oasis that many Americans don't know exists. Congress established the U.S. National Arboretum in 1927. Vital scientific research is under way at the sprawling 183-hectare compound. VOA's Dora Mekouar reports on the arboretum’s critical government mission. Camera: Adam Greenbaum ...