Author: Dmedia

PREK TAKEO, Cambodia — The Mekong River is a lifeline for millions in the six countries it traverses on its way from its headwaters to the sea, sustaining the world's largest inland fishery and abundant rice paddies on Vietnam's Mekong Delta. Cambodia's plan to build a massive canal linking the Mekong to a port on on its own coast on the Gulf of Thailand is raising alarm that the project could devastate the river's natural flood systems, worsening droughts and depriving farmers on the delta of the nutrient-rich silt that has made Vietnam the world's third-largest rice exporter. Cambodia hopes that the $1.7 billion Funan Techo canal, being built with Chinese help, will support its ambition to export directly from factories along the Mekong without relying on Vietnam, connecting the capital…

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Abuja, Nigeria — Leaders in Africa say the fight against malaria on the continent is facing significant funding gaps due to the ongoing global financial crisis and the impact of climate change. African leaders this week met in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly and called for a concerted effort to avert a funding crisis they say could set back decades of progress in the fight against malaria. The African Leaders Malaria Alliance, or ALMA, which hosted the high-level meeting, said if malaria funding continues to shrink, there will be an expected additional 112 million cases and some 280,000 deaths by the year 2029. Africa already accounts for an estimated 236 million malaria cases — or 95% of the global total — and 97% of deaths.…

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According to the International Energy Agency, the world now invests almost twice as much in clean energy as it does in fossil fuels. But with that shift comes environmental risks related to the mining of critical minerals. VOA’s Jessica Stone looks at how nations are navigating the environmental challenges of creating a renewable future. ...

HONG KONG — Hong Kong welcomed a new pair of giant pandas gifted by Beijing on Thursday with a lavish ceremony, raising hopes for a boost to the city's tourism. An An and Ke Ke are the third pair of giant pandas to be sent to the city from mainland China since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Their arrival came after their new neighbor, Ying Ying, gave birth to twins last month and became the world's oldest first-time panda mother on record. With the addition of the new bears, the twins, and their father, Le Le, Hong Kong now houses six pandas. Chief Executive John Lee on Tuesday said An An is a 5-year-old male panda who is agile, intelligent and active, while Ke Ke, a…

GENEVA — Police in northern Switzerland said Tuesday that several people have been detained and a criminal case opened in connection with the suspected death of a person in a "suicide capsule." The "Sarco" capsule is presumably designed to allow a person sitting in a reclining seat inside to push a button that injects nitrogen gas into the sealed chamber. The person is then supposed to fall asleep and die by suffocation in a few minutes. Exit International, an assisted suicide group based in the Netherlands, said it is behind the 3D-printed device that cost over $1 million to develop. Swiss law allows assisted suicide so long as the person takes his or her life with no "external assistance" and those who help the person die do not do so for…

Egypt’s second-largest city, Alexandria, lies in the Eastern Mediterranean, a top climate change hotspot that has dealt with record global air and ocean temperatures this year. Egypt-based photojournalist Hamada Elrasam presents scenes of everyday life that have been impacted by the changing climate phenomenon in the low-lying metropolis that has survived over two millennia, only to find itself on this century’s climate frontlines. Written in collaboration with Elle Kurancid. ...

wyoming, iowa — Taking a late-summer country drive in the Midwest means venturing into the corn zone, snaking between 12-foot-tall green, leafy walls that seem to block out nearly everything other than the sun and an occasional water tower. The skyscraper-like corn is a part of rural America as much as cavernous red barns and placid cows. But soon, that towering corn might become a miniature of its former self, replaced by stalks only half as tall as the green giants that have dominated fields for so long. "As you drive across the Midwest, maybe in the next seven, eight, 10 years, you're going to see a lot of this out there," said Cameron Sorgenfrey, an eastern Iowa farmer who has been growing newly developed short corn for several years, sometimes…

NEW YORK — First lady Jill Biden is unveiling a new set of actions to address health inequities faced by women in the United States, plans that include spending at least $500 million annually on women's health research.  Biden was making the announcement Monday while closing out the first day of this year's Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York.  The additional government spending will mainly come from the Department of Defense, which provides medical care to more than 230,000 active-duty military women and nearly 2 million military retirees, as well as their family members. The research will focus on why these women experience endocrine, hematological and other immunity-related disorders twice as often as men.  "Our nation is home to the best health research in the world, yet women's health…

NEW YORK — California and several environmental groups sued ExxonMobil on Monday and accused the oil giant of engaging in a decades-long campaign that helped fuel global plastic waste pollution.  Speaking at an event during Climate Week in New York City, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state sued Exxon after concluding a nearly two-year investigation that he said showed Exxon was deliberately misleading the public about the limitations of recycling.  "Today's lawsuit shows the fullest picture to date of ExxonMobil's decades-long deception, and we are asking the court to hold ExxonMobil fully accountable for its role in actively creating and exacerbating the plastics pollution crisis through its campaign of deception," Bonta said in a statement.  The investigation mirrors California's previous probes into the oil industry's alleged efforts to mislead…

Moscow — A Soyuz capsule carrying two Russians and one American from the International Space Station landed Monday in Kazakhstan, ending a record-breaking stay for the Russian pair. The capsule landed on the Kazakh steppe about 3 1/2 hours after undocking from the ISS in an apparently trouble-free descent. In the last stage of the landing, it descended under a red-and-white parachute at about 7.2 meters per second (16 mph), with small rockets fired in the final seconds to cushion the touchdown. The astronauts were extracted from the capsule and placed in nearby chairs to help them adjust to gravity, then given medical examinations in a nearby tent. Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub returned after 374 days aboard the space station; on Friday they broke the record for the longest continuous…

Cairo — Cholera is spreading in war-torn Sudan, killing at least 388 people and sickening about 13,000 others over the past two months, health authorities said, as more than 17 months of fighting between the military and a notorious paramilitary group shows no sign of abating.   The disease is spreading in areas devastated by recent heavy rainfall and floods especially in eastern Sudan where millions of war displaced people sheltered.   The casualties from cholera included six dead and about 400 sickened over the weekend, according to Sunday’s report by the Health Ministry. The disease was detected in 10 of the country’s 18 provinces with the eastern Kassala and al-Qadarif provinces the most hit, the ministry said.   Cholera is a fast-developing, highly contagious infection that causes diarrhea, leading to severe dehydration and…

United Nations, United States — The United Nations on Sunday adopted a "Pact for the Future" aimed at addressing sprawling 21st-century challenges ranging from conflict to climate change and human rights, despite last-minute objections from a group of countries led by Russia. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who organized the "Summit of the Future," had billed it as a "once-in-a-generation opportunity" to reshape human history by rekindling international cooperation. As an opening act for the annual high-level week of the U.N. General Assembly, which begins Tuesday, dozens of heads of state and government gathered for the signing of the text. In the adopted version, leaders pledged to bolster the multilateral system to "keep pace with a changing world" and to "protect the needs and interests of current and future generations" facing "persistent crisis."…

TEFE, Brazil — The carcass of a baby dolphin lay on the sand bank left exposed by the receding waters in an Amazon lake that has been drying up during the worst drought on record.  Researchers recovered the dead animal on Wednesday and measured water temperatures that have been rising as the lake's level drops. In last year's drought, more than 200 of the endangered freshwater dolphins died in Lake Tefe from excessive water temperatures.  "We've found several dead animals. Last week, we found one a day on average," said Miriam Marmontel, head of the dolphin project at the Mamiraua Institute for Sustainable Development.   "We're not yet associating the deaths with changes in water temperatures, but with the exacerbation of the proximity between human populations, mainly fishermen, and the animals,"…

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — On his first day of school at Newcomer Academy, Maikel Tejeda was whisked to the school library. The 7th grader didn't know why. He soon got the point: He was being given make-up vaccinations. Five of them. "I don't have a problem with that," said the 12-year-old, who moved from Cuba early this year. Across the library, a group of city, state and federal officials gathered to celebrate the school clinic, and the city. With U.S. childhood vaccination rates below their goals, Louisville and the state were being praised as success stories: Kentucky's vaccination rate for kindergarteners rose 2 percentage points in the 2022-23 school year compared with the year before. The rate for Jefferson County — which is Louisville — was up 4 percentage points. "Progress is…

IBADAN, Nigeria — In her cramped, dimly lit kitchen, Idowu Bello leans over a gas cooker while stirring a pot of eba, the thick, starchy West African staple made from cassava root. Kidney problems and chronic exhaustion forced the 56-year-old Nigerian woman to retire from teaching, and she switches between cooking with gas or over a wood fire depending on the fuel she can afford. Financial constraints also limit the food Bello has on hand even though doctors have recommended a nutrient-rich diet both to improve her weakening health and to help her teenage daughter, Fatima, grow. Along with eba, on the menu today is melon soup with ponmo, an inexpensive condiment made from dried cowhide. "Fish, meat, eggs, fruits, vegetables and even milk are costly these days," Bello, 56, said,…

PORTLAND, Maine — Fall is back, and bringing with it jack-o'-lanterns, football, pumpkin spice everything and — in some parts of the country — especially vibrant foliage. Leaves around the northern United States are starting to turn orange, yellow and red, inspiring legions of leaf lovers to hop in their cars and travel to the countryside for the best look at fall's fireworks. Leaf peeping — the act of traveling to witness nature's annual kaleidoscope — contributes billions of dollars to the economy, especially in New England and New York. But this year, some of the most colorful displays could be in the Midwest. AccuWeather, the commercial forecasting service, said in early September that it expects especially vibrant foliage in states such as Michigan and Illinois. The service also said powerful,…

NEW YORK — Six years after a teenage Greta Thunberg walked out of school in a solitary climate protest outside of the Swedish parliament, people around a warming globe marched in youth-led protest, saying their voices are being heard but not sufficiently acted upon. Emissions of heat-trapping gases and temperatures have been rising and oil and gas drilling has continued, even as the protests that kicked off major weeklong climate events in New York City have become annual events. This year, they come days before the United Nations convenes two special summits, one concentrating on sea level rise and the other on the future. The young people who organized these marches with Fridays for Future said there is frustration with inaction but also hope. People marched in Berlin, Rio de Janeiro,…

KOLKATA, INDIA — Striking junior doctors in India's West Bengal state agreed to resume essential services, in a partial resumption of medical facilities, but they will continue their strike over the rape and murder of a colleague over a month ago. The rape and murder of the 31-year-old female doctor in West Bengal in August set off a wave of protests by doctors demanding greater workplace safety for women and justice for their slain colleague, prompting India's Supreme Court to create a hospital safety task force. The junior doctors will resume essential duties from Saturday, the West Bengal Junior Doctors' Front, which represents about 7,000 physicians in the state, said in a statement on Thursday. "The movement for ‘justice’ will continue in each state-run hospital but we have decided to resume…

KAVUMU, Congo — Health authorities have struggled to contain outbreaks of mpox in Congo, a huge central African country where a myriad of existing problems makes stemming the spread particularly hard. Last month, the World Health Organization declared the outbreaks in Congo and about a dozen other African countries a global health emergency. And in Congo, scientists have identified a new strain of mpox that may spread more easily. It has reached areas where conflict and the displacement of a large number of people have already put health services under pressure. Overall, Congo has more than 21,000 of the 25,093 confirmed and suspected mpox cases in Africa this year, according to WHO's most recent count. Has Congo seen cases of mpox before? Yes, Congo is one of the African countries where…

Harare, Zimbabwe — A new report released by the main United Nations agency for action on AIDS and HIV says growing public debt is choking sub-Saharan African countries, leaving them with little fiscal room to finance critical HIV services. In the report, launched ahead of the 79th session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAIDS, asks the international community for more funding to ensure Africa eliminates AIDS by 2030. She said Africa, which accounts for the largest number of people living with HIV — some 26 million out of 40 million globally — is overwhelmed by public debt. Robert Shivambu, UNAIDS communication officer, told VOA: “The region's success in having reduced new HIV infections by 56% since 2010 will not be sustained if…

GENEVA — The United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, warned Friday that children in Burundi are bearing the brunt of the mpox outbreak, with cases of this deadly, infectious disease spreading at an alarming rate among a young population. “Of the nearly 600 reported cases, two-thirds are in children under 19. The situation has escalated rapidly, with a more-than-40% increase in cases over the past three weeks,” Dr. Paul Ngwakum, UNICEF’s regional health adviser for Eastern and Southern Africa, told journalists in Geneva via video link Friday. Ngwakum, who currently is on a visit to Burundi, said, “The fear expressed by the parents and the resilience of communities in the face of this public health crisis” and the rapid escalation of the disease “were striking.” Speaking from the capital, Bujumbura, he said the rise of…

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LONDON — Scientists searching for the origins of COVID-19 have zeroed in on a short list of animals that possibly helped spread it to people, an effort they hope could allow them to trace the outbreak back to its source. Researchers analyzed genetic material gathered from the Chinese market where the first outbreak was detected and found that the most likely animals were raccoon dogs, civet cats and bamboo rats. The scientists suspect infected animals were first brought to the Wuhan market in late November 2019, which then triggered the pandemic. Michael Worobey, one of the new study's authors, said they found which sub-populations of animals might have transmitted the coronavirus to humans. That may help researchers pinpoint where the virus commonly circulates in animals, known as its natural reservoir. "For…

People from across the globe are convening on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City for Climate Week. On the agenda: the environmental impact of seabed mining. The discussion comes as tech companies seek ways to fuel the green revolution while minimizing environmental impacts. VOA’s Jessica Stone has more.] ...

CHONBURI, Thailand — Only a month after Thailand's adorable baby hippo Moo Deng was unveiled on Facebook, her fame became unstoppable both domestically and internationally. Zookeeper Atthapon Nundee has been posting cute moments of the animals in his care for about five years. He never imagined Khao Kheow Open Zoo's newborn pygmy hippo would become an internet megastar within weeks. Cars started lining up outside the zoo well before it opened Thursday. Visitors traveled from near and far for a chance to see the pudgy, expressive 2-month-old in person at the zoo about 100 kilometers southeast of Bangkok. The pit where Moo Deng lives with her mom, Jona, was packed almost immediately, with people cooing and cheering every time the pink-cheeked baby animal made skittish movements. "It was beyond expectation," Atthapon…