Author: Dmedia

Countries waging wars are more focused on winning battles than mitigating their environmental impact. But researchers — who say the environmental impact of active conflicts is substantial — are trying to measure wars' effects. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports. Carla Babb contributed. ...

A great space success story comes to an end. And SpaceX is at it again with a busy week of launches. VOA's Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. ...

Geneva — New cancer cases are projected to rise by 77% to more than 35 million in 2050 from an estimated 20 million new cases and 9.7 million deaths in 2022, according to new data released Thursday by the World Health Organization’s cancer agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The report, which is being issued ahead of World Cancer Day February 4, projects the greatest relative increases in cancer cases will occur in lower human development index (HDI) settings. That is a reference to a tool developed by the United Nations to measure a country’s level of social and economic development. “We expect the global population of the world to rise from eight billion currently in 2022 to almost 10 billion, 9.7 billion, by 2050 and this will…

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Indigenous African grains such as millet and sorghum are known to be nutritious but are not popular with many, especially the Gen Zers who view the grains as food for the poor. To change this narrative, a Kenyan entrepreneur is using the grains to make snacks and breakfast cereals to promote consumption of indigenous grains and foster environmental sustainability, as Juma Majanga reports from Nairobi. Video by Amos Wangwa. ...

Nairobi — A polio vaccination campaign that was planned for November but postponed due to heavy rains and floods is finally taking place in three high risk counties in the northeastern part of Kenya. This comes after 13 cases of the so-called circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (CVDPV2) were discovered last year in the area.  This is the third round of polio vaccination targeting three high-risk counties of Mandera, Wajir and Garissa. The goal, according to Kenya’s ministry of health and its partners, is to reach about 750,000 children under the age of five. About 238,000 children ages 6 to 15 in certain areas will also be vaccinated. Aden Ibrahim, Garissa County director of health, explains. “The first case, the sample was collected in June 2023. It was a child which…

new york — The U.S. syphilis epidemic isn't abating, with the rate of infectious cases rising 9% in 2022, according to a new federal government report on sexually transmitted diseases in adults. But there's some unexpected good news: The rate of new gonorrhea cases fell for the first time in a decade. It's not clear why syphilis rose 9% while gonorrhea dropped 9%, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, adding that it's too soon to know whether a new downward trend is emerging for the latter. They are most focused on syphilis, which is less common than gonorrhea or chlamydia but considered more dangerous. Total cases surpassed 207,000 in 2022, the highest count in the United States since 1950, according to data released Tuesday. And while…

Blantyre, Malawi — The Malawi government and the World Health Organization launched a new COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Monday in 10 of the country’s 29 districts. This is partly in response to new cases confirmed in the past three weeks in several districts across the country. Nsanje District in southern Malawi currently leads in the number of COVID-19 cases recorded this year. George Mbotwa, spokesperson for the district health office, said the district has registered 17 new cases in the past three weeks and some are health workers. “Initially there were two, but we had up to eight cases that were health workers,” he said. “Some of them have now been confirmed as negative, and others are being followed up to ensure that they are fully recovered before they can resume…

GENEVA — The World Health Organization says great progress has been made in the global elimination of industrially produced trans fat, with nearly half the world's population protected against the harmful effects of this toxic product. "Five years ago, WHO called on countries and the food sector to eliminate industrially produced trans fats from the food supply. The response has been incredible," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday. "So far, 53 countries have implemented best practice policies, including bans and limits on trans fats, with three more countries on the way. This removes a major health risk for at least 3.7 billion people, or 46% of the world's population. "These policies are expected to save 183,000 lives every year. Just five years ago, only 6% of the world's population was…

PETALUMA, Calif. — Last month, Mike Weber got the news every poultry farmer fears: His chickens tested positive for avian flu. Following government rules, Weber's company, Sunrise Farms, had to slaughter its entire flock of egg-laying hens — 550,000 birds — to prevent the disease from infecting other farms in Sonoma County north of San Francisco. "It's a trauma. We're all going through grief as a result of it," said Weber, standing in an empty hen house. "Petaluma is known as the Egg Basket of the World. It's devastating to see that egg basket go up in flames." A year after the bird flu led to record egg prices and widespread shortages, the disease known as highly pathogenic avian influenza is wreaking havoc in California, which escaped the earlier wave of…

AZUA, Dominican Republic —  It was a busy Saturday morning at Marcia González's church. A bishop was visiting, and normally she would have been there helping with logistics, but on this day she was teaching sex education at a local school. "I coordinate activities at the church and my husband is a deacon," González said. "The bishop comes once a year and children are being confirmed, but I am here because this is important for my community." For 40 years, González and her husband have pushed for broader sex education in the Dominican Republic, one of four Latin American nations that criminalizes abortion without exceptions. Women face up to two years in prison for having an abortion; penalties for doctors or midwives range from five to 20 years. With a Bible on…

los angeles — Data gathered by NASA's Perseverance rover have confirmed the existence of ancient lake sediments deposited by water that once filled a giant basin on Mars called Jezero Crater, according to a study published Friday. The findings from ground-penetrating radar observations conducted by the robotic rover substantiate previous orbital imagery and other data leading scientists to theorize that portions of Mars were once covered in water and may have harbored microbial life. The research, led by teams from the University of California at Los Angeles  and the University of Oslo, was published in the journal Science Advances. It was based on subsurface scans taken by the car-sized, six-wheeled rover as it made its way across the Martian surface from the crater floor onto an adjacent expanse of braided, sedimentary-like features…

Groundbreaking artificial intelligence-assisted technology can help people with voice disorders speak in their natural voice, giving millions a chance to have clearer conversations. VOA’s Julie Taboh reports. Camera: Tina Trinh ...

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NAIROBI, Kenya — Researchers say a rhinoceros was impregnated through embryo transfer in the first successful use of a method that they say might later make it possible to save the nearly extinct northern white rhino subspecies.  The experiment was conducted with the less endangered southern white rhino subspecies. Researchers created an embryo in a lab from an egg and sperm collected from rhinos and transferred it into a southern white rhino surrogate mother at the Ol-Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.  "The successful embryo transfer and pregnancy are a proof of concept and allow [researchers] to now safely move to the transfer of northern white rhino embryos — a cornerstone in the mission to save the northern white rhino from extinction," the group said in a statement Wednesday.  However, the team learned…

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Montreal — A 10-year global study of positive doping tests by children and young teenagers showed most were tied to Russia, India and China, and in sports like weightlifting, athletics and cycling, the World Anti-Doping Agency said Wednesday. Diuretics, stimulants and anabolic steroids were the most commonly found substances in more than 1,500 positive tests involving more than 1,400 minors since 2012. The youngest athlete tested was 8 years old, and the youngest sanctioned in a doping case was a 12-year-old, WADA said in the Operation Refuge study. "Operation Refuge reports in heartbreaking detail the deep trauma and isolation child athletes experience following a positive test and a doping sanction," the chair of WADA's athlete council, Ryan Pini, said in a statement. It cited the testimony of a female minor "who…

Harare, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwean health authorities — battling a cholera outbreak that has infected about 20,000 people and killed more than 370 — say they hope donated vaccines will ease the spread of waterborne disease now affecting 60 of the country’s 64 districts.     Zimbabwean Health Minister Douglas Mombeshora told reporters in Harare on Wednesday that the country had recorded 20,121 suspected cholera cases and 376 deaths — six of them since Tuesday. He said the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund had secured 2.3 million cholera vaccine doses for the country, with nearly 900,000 of them to be administered next week.   “The vaccination campaign is expected to start from the 29th of January in [a] phased approach to the hot spots,” he said. “This is…

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO — A federal judge is being asked to issue a stop-work order on a $10 billion transmission line being built through a remote southeastern Arizona valley to carry wind-generated electricity to customers as far away as California.  A 32-page lawsuit filed on January 17 in U.S. District Court in Tucson, Arizona, accuses the U.S. Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management of refusing for nearly 15 years to recognize "overwhelming evidence of the cultural significance" of the remote San Pedro Valley to Native American tribes, including the Tohono O'odham, Hopi, Zuni and San Carlos Apache Tribe.  The suit was filed shortly after Pattern Energy received approval to transmit electricity generated by its SunZia wind farm in central New Mexico through the San Pedro Valley east of Tucson and…

Abortion is on the ballot in 2024, the White House says, with Vice President Kamala Harris crisscrossing the country to equate the Biden campaign with protection and expansion of reproductive rights, and Republican candidates speaking of possible federal abortion bans. This leaves the ultimate choice on this sensitive issue to American voters. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House. ...

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washington — Scientists have mapped the largest coral reef deep in the ocean, stretching hundreds of miles off the U.S. Atlantic Coast.  While researchers have known since the 1960s that some coral were present off the Atlantic, the reef's size remained a mystery until new underwater mapping technology made it possible to construct 3D images of the ocean floor.  The largest yet known deep coral reef "has been right under our noses, waiting to be discovered," said Derek Sowers, an oceanographer at the nonprofit Ocean Exploration Trust.  Sowers and other scientists, including several at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, recently published maps of the reef in the journal Geomatics.  The reef extends for about 310 miles (499 kilometers) from Florida to South Carolina and at some points reaches 68 miles…

SHILLONG, India — Tambor Lyngdoh made his way through the fern-covered woodland — naming plants, trees, flowers, even stones — as if he were paying older family members a visit. The community leader and entrepreneur was a little boy when his uncle brought him here and said these words: "This forest is your mother." This sacred space is in the village of Mawphlang, nestled in the verdant Khasi Hills in the northeast Indian state of Meghalaya, whose name means "abode of clouds." On an overcast day, the forest, a bumpy 24-kilometer drive from the state capital of Shillong, was tranquil but for the sound of crickets chirping and raindrops rustling the bright green foliage. The ground, carpeted by dead leaves and green saplings, was peppered with moss-covered sacred stones, which for…

LAHORE, Pakistan — The air smells burnt in Lahore, a city in Pakistan's east that used to be famous for its gardens but has become infamous for its terrible air quality. Toxic smog has sickened tens of thousands of people in recent months. Flights have been canceled. Artificial rain was deployed last December to battle smog, a national first. Nothing seems to be working. Lahore is in an airshed, an area where pollutants from industry, transportation and other human activities get trapped because of local weather and topography so they cannot disperse easily. Airsheds also contribute to cross-border pollution. Under certain wind conditions, 30% of pollution in the Indian capital New Delhi can come from Pakistan's Punjab province, where Lahore is the capital. There are six major airsheds in South Asia,…

Tokyo, Japan — Japan on Saturday became only the fifth nation to achieve a soft lunar landing, but its Moon Sniper spacecraft was running out of power because of a problem with its solar battery. After a nail-biting 20-minute descent, space agency JAXA said its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) had touched down and communication had been established. But without the solar cells functioning, JAXA official Hitoshi Kuninaka said the craft, dubbed the Moon Sniper for its precision technology, would only have power for "several hours." As mission control scientists prioritized acquiring data while they could, Kuninaka suggested that once the angle of the sun changed, the batteries might work again. "It is unlikely that the solar battery has failed. It's possible that it is not facing in the originally…

TOKYO — Japan landed a spacecraft on the moon Saturday, an attempt at the world's first "pinpoint lunar landing." The milestone puts Japan in a club previously occupied by only the United States, the Soviet Union, India and China. A raft of countries and companies are also plotting moon missions. Success means international scientific and diplomatic accolades and potential domestic political gains. Failure means a very expensive, and public, .Here's a look at high-profile recent and upcoming attempts, and what they might mean. The United States NASA plans to send astronauts to fly around the moon next year, and to land there in 2026. Just this week, however, a U.S. company, Astrobotic Technology, said its lunar lander will soon burn up in Earth's atmosphere after a failed moonshot. The lander, named…

tokyo — Japan’s spacecraft arrived on the surface of the moon early Saturday, but it wasn’t immediately clear if the landing was a success, because the Japanese space agency said it was still “checking its status.” More details about the spacecraft, which is carrying no astronauts, would be given at a news conference, officials said. If the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, landed successfully, Japan would become the fifth country to accomplish the feat after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India. SLIM came down onto the lunar surface at around 12:20 a.m. Tokyo time Saturday (1520 GMT Friday). As the spacecraft descended, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s mission control said that everything was going as planned and later said that SLIM was on the lunar surface.…