Author: Dmedia

US President Joe Biden is putting women’s health and reproductive rights at the center of his campaign in the run-up to the November 5th election. Biden, a Democrat, will face the Republican challenger, former President Donald Trump, who has spoken about abortion but has not fully clarified his position. VOA’s Laurel Bowman reports. ...

geneva — The World Health Organization warns that hunger, poverty, malnutrition, and disease have reached alarming levels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, especially in the east, where a resurgence of fighting between armed groups and government forces has uprooted millions of people from their homes.  "DRC is the second-largest displacement crisis globally after Sudan, with more people forced to flee the violence since the start of the year," said Dr. Boureima Hama Sambo, WHO representative to the DRC.  Speaking from the capital, Kinshasa, Sambo told journalists in Geneva Friday that a combination of violence, climate shocks, and epidemics has worsened the humanitarian and overall health situation for millions of people who are struggling to find enough food to eat, a safe place to stay, and help to ward off disease…

Nairobi, Kenya — With a week until Easter, chocolate lovers should brace themselves for higher prices when they purchase their favorite seasonal treats. A nonprofit environmental group says cocoa costs three times more than it did a year ago because of climate change and the El Nino weather effect. Prices reached $8,000 per ton this week, compared with $2,500 last year at this time. Amber Sawyer, a climate and energy analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, or ECIU, a U.K.-based nonprofit group, said the volatile weather patterns in the top cocoa-producing countries of Ghana and Ivory Coast have affected international commodity prices. "Chocolate producers are trying to buy up cocoa, but there's a reduced supply of it,” she said. “So obviously, because of the reduced supply, the demand has…

washington — There definitely were no Muppets during the Permian Period, but there was a Kermit — or at least a forerunner of modern amphibians that has been named after the celebrity frog. Scientists on Thursday described the fossilized skull of a creature called Kermitops gratus that lived in what is now Texas about 270 million years ago. It belongs to a lineage believed to have given rise to the three living branches of amphibians — frogs, salamanders and limbless caecilians. While only the skull, measuring around 3 cm long, was discovered, the researchers think Kermitops had a stoutly built salamander-like body roughly 15-18 cm long, though salamanders would not evolve for another roughly 100 million years. Amphibians are one of the four groups of living terrestrial vertebrates, along with reptiles,…

LONDON — As the United Nations observes World Water Day on Friday, there is a growing risk of conflict over water resources as climate change takes hold, the international body said. Meanwhile, nongovernmental aid agency Oxfam accused global corporations of "grabbing" water from poorer countries to boost profits. Declaring this year's theme Water for Peace, the U.N. warned that "when water is scarce or polluted, or when people have unequal or no access, tensions can rise between communities and countries." "More than 3 billion people worldwide depend on water that crosses national borders. Yet only 24 countries have cooperation agreements for all their shared water," the U.N. said. "As climate change impacts increase and populations grow, there is an urgent need within and between countries to unite around protecting and conserving…

A high-tech solution for tackling space clutter, photography tips for the upcoming solar eclipse, and we remember a spaceflight pioneer. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. ...

Paris — Representatives of 30 nations meeting in Brussels vowed to beef up nuclear energy Thursday as one solution to meet climate-fighting targets and guarantee reliable energy supplies. But the issue of nuclear power is divisive, and critics say it shouldn’t be part of the world’s approach to energy challenges. The summit was the first of its kind, drawing leaders and delegates from the United States, Brazil, China and France, among others. The International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, co-hosted the meeting and is promoting nuclear energy as a key way to reduce skyrocketing climate emissions. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said, “The heads of government, presidents, they believe that in the current context energywise, securitywise, nuclear has a very important contribution to make.” Over 400 nuclear plants operate in about 30…

Manzini, Eswatini — Traditional medicine, or "muti," is an important part of Eswatini's culture. However, an increasing demand for muti has placed some of the southern African kingdom’s animal species at risk of extinction. That’s something conservationists and molecular biologists want to change. Molecular biologist Zamekile Bhembe, who works for the USAID-funded EWild Laboratory at the University of Eswatini, is fighting poachers and trying to get them convicted for their crimes. She said poaching for traditional medicinal purposes is a leading cause of biodiversity decline, and she wants stronger regulations to protect wildlife. "Every time you see biodiversity declines, there will be some sort of poaching involved," she said. "As a country, we cannot deny that we are using these resources as our traditional medicine. It’s just that we need a…

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s government will take final steps to suspend the licenses of striking junior doctors next week as they refuse to end their weekslong walkouts that have burdened the country’s medical services, officials said Thursday. More than 90% of the country’s 13,000 medical interns and residents have been on strike for about a month to protest the government’s plan to sharply increase medical school admissions. Their strikes have caused hundreds of canceled surgeries and other treatments at hospitals. Officials say it is urgent to have more doctors because South Korea has a rapidly aging population, and its doctor-to-population ratio is one of the lowest in the developed world. But doctors say schools can’t handle an abrupt, steep increase in students, and that it would ultimately undermine the…

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Pacific leaders are on high alert after U.S. scientists warned that the world is nearing a historic mass coral bleaching brought on by high water temperatures fueled by climate change. VOA’s Jessica Stone reports. (Produced by Jessica Stone) ...

SYDNEY — An annual university report said although Australia's environmental scorecard deteriorated in 2023, the nation fared better than many other countries. While 2023 was the hottest year on record globally, for Australia it was the eighth hottest year because of wet and relatively mild conditions. The research is carried out each year by the Australia National University,  or ANU, and is contained in the Australian Environment 2023 Report. Researchers use scientific information to give Australia a score out of 10. In 2023, it was 7.5, down from 8.7 the previous year. The decline was mostly due to reduced rainfall compared to 2022.  They stress that the report card is not a reflection of the Canberra government’s policies, but a general assessment of the health of the environment. Information about the…

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Washington — An array of advanced tests found no brain injuries or degeneration among U.S. diplomats and other government employees who suffer mysterious health problems once dubbed "Havana syndrome, " researchers reported Monday. The National Institutes of Health's nearly five-year study offers no explanation for symptoms including headaches, balance problems and difficulties with thinking and sleep that were first reported in Cuba in 2016 and later by hundreds of American personnel in multiple countries. But it did contradict some earlier findings that raised the specter of brain injuries in people experiencing what the State Department now calls "anomalous health incidents." "These individuals have real symptoms and are going through a very tough time," said Dr. Leighton Chan, NIH's chief of rehabilitation medicine, who helped lead the research. "They can be quite…

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CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Mice accidentally introduced to a remote island near Antarctica 200 years ago are breeding out of control because of climate change, and they are eating seabirds and causing major harm in a special nature reserve with “unique biodiversity.” Now conservationists are planning a mass extermination using helicopters and hundreds of tons of rodent poison, which needs to be dropped over every part of Marion Island's 297 square kilometers (115 square miles) to ensure success. If even one pregnant mouse survives, their prolific breeding ability means it may have all been for nothing. The Mouse-Free Marion project — pest control on a grand scale — is seen as critical for the ecology of the uninhabited South African territory and the wider Southern Ocean. It would be the…

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Assemblyman Anthony Rendon likes to spend his spare time away from the Capitol in Sacramento with his 4-year-old daughter at home near Los Angeles. Last weekend, he took her ice skating and afterward to an indoor playground, then let her get a donut after she agreed to ride her scooter on the way there.    “Those are the types of things that make me happy,” he said this week in an interview outside the state Assembly chambers, where he's served as a lawmaker for a dozen years.    Now Rendon, a Democrat who was one of the longest-serving Assembly speakers in California history, is spending his last year in office trying to make happiness more central to policymaking. He created a first-in-the-nation group to study the issue,…

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NAIROBI, Kenya — Doctors at Kenya’s public hospitals began a nationwide strike Thursday, accusing the government of failing to implement a raft of promises from a collective bargaining agreement signed in 2017 after a 100-day strike that saw people dying from lack of care. The Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union said they went on strike to demand comprehensive medical cover for the doctors and because the government has yet to post 1,200 medical interns. Davji Bhimji, secretary-general of KMPDU, said 4,000 doctors took part in the strike despite a labor court order asking the union to put the strike on hold to allow talks with the government. And Dennis Miskellah, deputy secretary general of the union, said they would disregard the court order the same way the government had…

Windhoek, Namibia — A top Namibian health official tells VOA the southern Africa country is set to begin distribution of the HPV vaccine to adolescent girls in April as a preventative measure in the fight against cervical cancer. Namibia has a population of about 1 million women ages 15 years and older who are at risk of developing cervical cancer. Each year, about 375 women in Namibia are diagnosed with the disease, and the fatality rate is over 50%. The Human Papillomavirus Vaccine, known as HPV, has been proven to greatly lessen the chance of getting cervical cancer. Ben Nangombe, executive director at Namibia’s Ministry of Health and Social Services, says health workers will begin vaccinating about 183,000 girls between the ages of nine and 14 next month. He says the…

Malawi has embarked on trials of genetically modified maize aimed to curb recurrent hunger and pests like fall armyworms and caterpillars. The trials come amid concerns about the possible effects genetically modified organisms have on health and the environment. Lameck Masina reports from Lilongwe. ...

Washington — A polio survivor known as the "man in the iron lung" has died aged 78, according to his family and a fundraising website. Paul Alexander of Dallas, Texas contracted polio at the age of six, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down and reliant on a mechanical respirator to breathe for much of the time. Though often confined to his submarine-like cylinder, he excelled in his studies, earned a law degree, worked in the legal field and wrote a book. "With a heavy heart I need to say my brother passed last night," Philip Alexander posted on Facebook early Wednesday. "It was an honor to be part of someone's life who was as admired as he was." Christopher Ulmer, a disability advocate running a fundraiser for Alexander, also confirmed…

UNITED NATIONS — The number of children worldwide who died before age 5 reached a record low in 2022, the United Nations said in a report published Tuesday, as for the first time fewer than 5 million died. According to the estimate, 4.9 million children died before their fifth birthday in 2022, a 51% decrease since 2000 and a 62% drop since 1990, according to the report, which still warned such progress is "precarious" and unequal. "There is a lot of good news, and the major one is that we have come to a historic level of under-five mortality, which ... reached under 5 million for the first time, so it is 4.9 million per year," Helga Fogstad, director of health at the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, told AFP. According to…

Cape Canaveral, Florida — Four astronauts from four countries caught a lift back to Earth with SpaceX on Tuesday to end a half-year mission at the International Space Station. Their capsule streaked across the U.S. in the predawn darkness and splashed into the Gulf of Mexico near the Florida Panhandle. NASA's Jasmin Moghbeli, a Marine helicopter pilot, led the returning crew of Denmark's Andreas Mogensen, Japan's Satoshi Furukawa and Russia's Konstantin Borisov. They moved into the space station last August. Their replacements arrived last week in their own SpaceX capsule. "We left you some peanut butter and tortillas," Moghbeli radioed after departing the orbiting complex on Monday. Replied NASA's Loral O'Hara: "I miss you guys already and thanks for that very generous gift." O'Hara has another few weeks at the space…

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