‘Souls of Ancestors’ display stirs new interest in Cambodian antiquity
PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA — Nhem Liza made her first visit to the National Museum of Cambodia after learning about the August return from the United States of dozens of looted Cambodian artifacts, including important Hindu and Buddhist masterpieces dating from the ninth to 14th centuries.
“Those artifacts are amazing,” said 15-year-old Nhem, a 10th grade Phnom Penh high school student.
The return of the statues — viewed as divine or containing the souls of ancestors — has given younger Cambodians like Nhem an opportunity to embrace the country’s cultural heritage and history.
“I am excited to see these artifacts our government is trying to get back,” she told VOA on September 16 after viewing some of objects now on display at the museum.
Cambodia has worked for years to identify and secure the return of culturally and historically important relics from private collections and museums overseas, many of which were lost to the country because of war, theft and the illegal artifact trade.
Cambodia faced continuous civil unrest from the mid-1960s until the early 1990s and archeological sites from the ancient Khmer Empire, such as Angkor Wat and Koh Ker, suffered serious damage and widespread looting, Cambodian officials told VOA Khmer.
In August, Cambodia celebrated the return of 70 items from museums and private collections overseas, including 14 from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The objects include priceless stone statues such as one depicting a mythical warrior from the Hindu epic Mahabharata. There are also statues of Hindu deities Shiva and Parvati, and one of the Hindu god Ardhanarishvara from the ancient capital of Koh Ker, according to Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts.
Presiding over the return ceremony, Prime Minister Hun Manet said the 70 returned objects symbolically reunited the Cambodian people with their “ancestral souls,” adding that the government will continue working to bring more artifacts home.
From 1996 to July of this year, 1,098 artifacts had been returned to Cambodia — 571 from private collections and 527 from foreign institutions and governments, Hun said.
“It is the soul of our nation,” Doeun Sokun Aly, 18, told VOA at the museum. “The heroes of our country built those artifacts for the younger generation to know about those antiques. … I will visit museums more to see more artifacts.”
National Museum Director Chhay Visoth told VOA the display is meant to stir new interest from Cambodians, especially younger Cambodians.
“Recently, we have seen a surprising increase of Cambodian visitors to the museum, especially youth,” he said by phone this week.
The authorities, he said, are now planning to conduct a “mobile exhibition” to display the artifacts at museums in provinces such as Siem Reap, Battambang and Pursat, in the northwestern part of the country.
Chhay said the museum also hopes the display will send a message to private collectors and museums overseas that “those artifacts are greatly important” and “not for beautifying gardens, kitchens, living rooms, residents or offices of the rich.”
“For Cambodians, they are meaningful indeed. Those artifacts are the souls of Khmer ancestors,” he said.
Chhay added that the museum is already planning to expand its display area to accommodate more returned artifacts.
Over the years, Cambodia has received dozens of statues from the families of wealthy collectors, such as George Lindemann, a U.S. businessman and philanthropist who died in 2018.
In 2021, after three years of negotiations, the family of the late British art collector Douglas Latchford agreed to return more than 100 Cambodian artifacts, according to the government.
Latchford, who co-authored three books on Cambodian art and antiques, died in 2020 facing accusations that he had illegally trafficked the artifacts to his homes in Bangkok and London.
In November 2019, federal prosecutors in New York charged Latchford with falsifying the provenance, invoices and shipping documents to transport valuable Khmer-era relics to private collections, museums and auction houses around the world.
Other cultural objects that have found their way back to Cambodia went through processes including voluntary returns, negotiations, seizures and legal proceedings.
The United States has helped secure the return of well over 150 antiques to Cambodia so far, Wesley Holzer, a U.S. Embassy spokesperson in Phnom Penh said.
“The United States is proud of its longstanding contributions to preserving and restoring Cambodia’s cultural heritage,” he told VOA in an email, adding that Cambodia is the first country in Southeast Asia to establish a bilateral property repatriation memorandum of understanding with the U.S.
“Through this MOU, the United States and Cambodia have trained heritage professionals, prevented pillaging of antiquities, and facilitated the return of looted artifacts. This agreement also makes it illegal to import certain Cambodian archeological and ethnological material into the United States,” he added.
Bradley Gordon, a lawyer representing Cambodian government, said there were “many more” that his team are searching for.
“To be clear, Cambodia does not want to empty out museums around the world, but wants many important and precious national treasures to come home. Cambodia also is open to long-term loans which they are exploring with a number of museums,” he added.
A member of Gordon’s restitution team, Cambodian researcher Kunthea Chhoun, said getting the artifacts back is not easy.
“We need to investigate and collect testimonies from looters, villagers and brokers. It takes a great amount of patience and many interviews. We have used different approaches to get back our artifacts and it has taken many years,” she told VOA in a September 20 email.
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UN report: Debt crisis undermines AIDS eradication in Africa
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 fiscal space is constrained.”
Shivambu said the U.N. believes that when debt payments hinder countries’ ability to effectively look after health care needs of their people, global health security is put at risk.
Zimbabwe is one of the countries fighting to reduce the rate of HIV infection while dealing with high debt.
On Friday, parliament Speaker Jacob Mudenda told colleagues that the country had made strides in fighting HIV/AIDS, starting in 1999 as a pioneer of the AIDS levy — a 3% income tax for individuals and 3% tax on profits of employers.
He said that the budget of $387 million for HIV programs — largely foreign sponsored — was no longer enough and that there was need to expand the tax base.
“Let’s create wealth, when that wealth is created from our wealth, including mineral resources, we are going to be able to expand the tax base,” he said.
“From that expanded tax base we will be able as parliament to come with a very stout budget. These donations are going to dwindle, slowly but surely. This current funding level still falls far short of the estimated $500 million needed annually to achieve [the] ambitious goal of the Zimbabwe national AIDS strategic plan, especially with over 1 million people living with HIV now on anti-retroviral therapy.”
Mudenda declined to say if servicing Zimbabwe’s debt — which stands at $17.5 billion, according to the African Development Bank — was one reason funding for HIV programs is falling short.
Zimbabwe is battling to service its debt so that it can resume receiving loans from multilateral development banks such as the IMF and World Bank.
Shivambu said, “Public debt needs to be urgently reduced and domestic resource mobilization strengthened to enable the fiscal space to fully fund the HIV response and end AIDS. World leaders cannot let a resource crunch derail global progress to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.”
That’s the message UNAIDS officials will take to the high-level summit of the U.N. General Assembly beginning next week.
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Mpox spreads at alarming rate among children in Burundi
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 mpox among children under the age of 5 is of particular concern as they represent 30% of the reported cases. This, he said, underscores the urgent need for targeted interventions to protect children from becoming infected as schools have reopened this week.
“UNICEF is supporting the Ministry of Education to implement health measures in schools, train staff to recognize early symptoms of mpox and reinforce hand hygiene. We aim to ensure that all children can safely return to school and minimize educational disruptions,” he said, noting that this was “a rapidly evolving situation.”
Even amid the grim situation, he observed that Burundi has had no deaths from mpox, formerly known as monkeypox. He said this provides “an opportunity to end this outbreak in a very short time period.”
“The geographical area is still limited, and with concerted effort from all partners, we can limit the spread, contain the virus, and potentially end the outbreak with no lives lost,” said Ngwakum.
He added that “it was difficult to make firm statements regarding when the outbreak could be brought under control,” both in Burundi and the wider African region, a sentiment echoed by the World Health Organization.
WHO spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris told journalists, “The response to the outbreak is made more difficult by the context, with insecurity in the affected areas, and concurrent outbreaks of other diseases including measles and chickenpox. WHO is on the ground, working to stop these outbreaks.”
So far this year, the WHO reports there have been more than 25,000 suspected mpox cases and 723 deaths among suspected cases in Africa. The most heavily infected country is the Democratic Republic of Congo, with 21,835 suspected cases and 717 deaths, followed by Burundi with 1,489 suspected cases and no deaths and Nigeria with 935 suspected cases and no deaths.
“Vaccination is going to be a very useful tool, particularly for trying to break the chains of transmission,” Harris said. “But the virus primarily spreads through close personal contact within families. And when people are living in difficult conditions, if they do not have access to the materials, to the soap, to the clean bedding, to the clean clothing, it is very, very difficult for them to not transmit.
“Many of the children who we have seen who have sadly died in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were severely malnourished, had suffered the effects of conflict, and perhaps also had other diseases at the same time. … It may indeed be that this population cannot respond immunologically to yet another threat,” she warned.
While affirming the importance of vaccines in the fight against mpox, UNICEF representative Ngwakum observed that “unfortunately,” the vaccines that are available now “cannot be used for children.”
“I do not want to bank all our interventions on vaccines,” he said. “Vaccines are only one tool that can be used to protect children and communities against mpox. And we are, in addition to vaccines, deploying other different tools” to keep children safe, he said.
UNICEF says it is possible to halt the rapid spread of mpox if agencies act swiftly and have the means in which to do it. The U.N. children’s agency is urgently appealing for $58.8 million to scale up its humanitarian response across six African countries, including Burundi.
“These funds are essential to stop the transmission of mpox, protect children and maintain critical services like education and health care,” said Ngwakum.
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China-connected spamouflage impersonated Dutch cartoonist
Washington — Based on the posts of an X account that bears the name of Dutch cartoonist Bart van Leeuwen, a profile picture of his face and short professional bio, one would think the Amsterdam-based artist is a staunch supporter of China and fierce critic of the United States.
In one post, the account blasts what it calls Washington’s “fallacies against the Chinese economy,” accompanied by a cartoon from the Global Times — a Beijing-controlled media outlet — showing Uncle Sam aiming but failing to hit a target emblazoned with the words “China’s economy.”
In another, the account reposts a Chinese propaganda video about the country’s rubber-stamp legislature, writing “today’s China is closely connected with the world, blending with each other, and achieving mutual success.”
But Van Leeuwen didn’t make the posts. In fact, this account doesn’t even belong to him.
It belongs to a China-connected network on X of “spamouflage” accounts, which pretend to be the work of real people but are in reality controlled by robots sending out messages designed to shape public opinion.
China has repeatedly rejected reports that it seeks to influence U.S. presidential elections, describing such claims as “fabricated.”
VOA Mandarin and DoubleThink Lab (DTL), a Taiwanese social media analytics firm, uncovered the fake Van Leeuwen account during a joint investigation into a network of spamouflage accounts working on behalf of the Chinese government.
The network, consisting of at least nine accounts, propagated Beijing’s talking points on issues including human rights abuses in China’s western Xinjiang province, territorial disputes with countries in the South China Sea and U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.
Fake account contradicts real artist
Van Leeuwen confirmed in an interview with VOA Mandarin that he had nothing to do with and was not aware of the fake account.
“It’s ironic that my identity, being a political cartoonist, is being used for political propaganda,” he told VOA in a written statement.
The real Van Leeuwen is an award-winning cartoonist whose works have been published on news outlets around the world, such as the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Korea Times, Sing Tao Daily in Hong Kong and Gulf Today in the United Arab Emirates.
He specializes in editorial cartoons, whose main subjects include global politics, elections in the U.S. and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Several of his past illustrations made fun of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s economic policies and the opaqueness of Beijing’s inner political struggles.
After being contacted by VOA Mandarin, a spokesman from X said the fake account has been suspended.
Other than finding irony in being impersonated by a Chinese propaganda bot, Van Leeuwen said the incident also worries him.
“This example once again highlights the need for far-reaching measures regarding the restriction of social media,” Van Leeuwen wrote in his statement, “especially with irresponsible people like Elon Musk at the helm.”
After purchasing what was then called Twitter in 2022, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO vowed to reduce the prevalence of bots on the platform, but many users complain it has become even worse.
Musk, the world’s richest person, is a so-called “free speech absolutist,” opposing almost all censorship of people voicing their views. Critics say his policy allows racist and false information to flourish on X.
Former President Donald Trump has praised Musk’s business acumen and said he plans to have the man who may become the world’s first trillionaire head a commission on government efficiency if he is reelected in November.
Network of spamouflage accounts
Before its suspension, the X account that impersonated Van Leeuwen had close to 1,000 followers, more than Van Leeuwen’s real X account. It was registered in 2013, but its first post came only last year. The account’s early posts were mostly encouraging and inspiring words in Chinese. It also posted many dance videos.
Gradually, the account started to mix in more and more political narratives, criticizing the U.S. and defending China. It often reposted content from another spamouflage account called “Grey World.”
“Grey World” used a photo of an attractive Asian woman as its profile picture. Most of its posts were supportive of Beijing’s talking points. It regularly posted videos and cartoons from Chinese state media. It also posted several of Van Leeuwen’s cartoons about American politics.
VOA Mandarin and DTL’s investigation identified “Grey World” as the main spamouflage account in a network of nine such accounts. Other accounts in the network, including the fake Van Leeuwen account, amplified “Grey World” by reposting its content.
But posts from “Grey World” had limited reach on X, despite having tens of thousands of followers. For example, between August 18 and September 1, its most popular post, a diatribe against Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy, was viewed a little over 10,000 times but only had 35 reposts and 65 likes.
After the suspension of the fake Van Leeuwen account, X also shut down the “Grey World” account.
The spamouflage network is not the first linked to China.
In April, British researchers released a report saying Chinese nationalist trolls were posing as American supporters of Trump on X to try to exploit domestic divisions ahead of the U.S. election.
U.S. federal prosecutors in 2023 accused China’s Ministry of Public Security of having a covert social media propaganda campaign that also aimed to influence U.S. elections.
Researchers at Facebook’s parent company Meta said it was the largest known covert propaganda operation ever identified on that platform and Instagram, reported Rolling Stone magazine.
Network analysis firm Graphika called the pro-Chinese network “Spamouflage Dragon,” part of a campaign it identified in early 2020 that was at the time posting content that praised Beijing’s policies and attacked those of then-President Trump.
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AviaFest.com for sale!
It sounds like you’re interested in aviation festivals! One of the most notable aviation events in Ukraine is the KharkivAviaFest. This festival is held at the Korotych airfield near Kharkiv and is known for its impressive air shows and diverse ground activities.
The festival typically features:
Six-hour air shows with performances by top Ukrainian and international pilots. Exhibitions showcasing aviation, space, and technical achievements. Interactive activities like introductory flights, parachute jumps, and air tours. Entertainment including live music, food courts, and various attractions for all ages. It’s a fantastic event for aviation enthusiasts and families alike.
Aviation festivals can be a lot of fun, even if it’s your first time. They offer a unique opportunity to see incredible aircraft up close and witness thrilling aerial performances. If you ever get the chance to attend one, it might be an exciting new experience for you.
Here are some tips and things to expect when attending an aviation festival:
What to Expect:
Air Shows: These are the main attractions, featuring aerobatic displays, formation flying, and sometimes even historical reenactments with vintage aircraft.
Static Displays: You can walk around and see various aircraft up close, from small private planes to large military jets.
Interactive Activities: Many festivals offer opportunities for introductory flights, simulator experiences, and even parachute jumps.
Exhibitions: There are often booths and displays from aviation companies, showcasing the latest in aviation technology and services.
Entertainment: Live music, food stalls, and family-friendly activities are usually available to keep everyone entertained.
Tips for Attending:
Arrive Early: This will give you time to explore the static displays and find a good spot for watching the air shows.
Dress Comfortably: Wear comfortable shoes and clothing suitable for the weather. Hats and sunscreen are a must if it’s sunny.
Bring Essentials: Pack water, snacks, and a camera. Binoculars can also enhance your viewing experience.
Check the Schedule: Make sure to get a program or check the event’s website for the schedule of performances and activities.
Stay Safe: Follow all safety instructions and be mindful of restricted areas. Aviation festivals are a fantastic way to learn more about aviation and enjoy a day out.
More information here
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New analysis of 2019 Wuhan market animals may help find COVID-19 origin
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 example, with the raccoon dogs, we can show that the raccoon dogs that were [at the market] … were from a sub-species that circulates more in southern parts of China,” said Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona. Knowing that might help researchers understand where those animals came from and where they were sold. Scientists might then start sampling bats in the area, which are known to be the natural reservoirs of related coronaviruses like SARS.
While the research bolsters the case that COVID-19 emerged from animals, it does not resolve the polarized and political debate over whether the virus instead emerged from a research lab in China.
Mark Woolhouse, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Edinburgh, said the new genetic analysis suggested that the pandemic “had its evolutionary roots in the market” and that it was very unlikely COVID-19 was infecting people before it was identified at the Huanan market.
“It’s a significant finding and this does shift the dial more in favor of an animal origin,” said Woolhouse, who was not connected to the research. “But it is not conclusive.”
An expert group led by the World Health Organization concluded in 2021 that the virus probably spread to humans from animals and that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely.” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus later said it was premature to rule out a lab leak.
An AP investigation in April found the search for the COVID origins in China has gone dark after political infighting and missed opportunities by local and global health officials to narrow the possibilities.
Scientists say they may never know for sure where exactly the virus came from.
In the new study, published Thursday in the journal Cell, scientists from Europe, the U.S. and Australia analyzed data previously released by experts at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. It included 800 samples of genetic material Chinese workers collected on Jan. 1, 2020, from the Huanan seafood market, the day after Wuhan municipal authorities first raised the alarm about an unknown respiratory virus.
Chinese scientists published the genetic sequences they found last year, but did not identify any of the animals possibly infected with the coronavirus. In the new analysis, researchers used a technique that can identify specific organisms from any mixture of genetic material collected in the environment.
Worobey said the information provides “a snapshot of what was [at the market] before the pandemic began” and that genetic analyses like theirs “helps to fill in the blanks of how the virus might have first started spreading.”
Woolhouse said the new study, while significant, left some critical issues unanswered.
“There is no question COVID was circulating at that market, which was full of animals,” he said. “The question that still remains is how it got there in the first place.”
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Debate churns over mining Pacific seabed for green-energy minerals
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.]
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Baby hippo Moo Deng becomes internet sensation
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 told The Associated Press. “I wanted people to know her. I wanted a lot of people to visit her, or watch her online, or leave fun comments. I never would’ve thought (of this).”
Moo Deng, which literally means “bouncy pork” in Thai, is a type of meatball. The name was chosen by fans via a poll on social media, and it matches her other siblings: Moo Toon (stewed pork) and Moo Waan (sweet pork). There is also a common hippo at the zoo named Kha Moo (stewed pork leg).
“She’s such a little lump. I want to ball her up and swallow her whole!” said Moo Deng fan Areeya Sripanya while visiting the zoo Thursday.
Already, Moo Deng has been made into memes. Artists are drawing cartoons based on her. Social media platform X even featured her in its official account’s post.
With all that fame, zoo director Narongwit Chodchoi said they have begun patenting and trademarking “Moo Deng the hippo” to prevent the animal from being commercialized by anyone else. “After we do this, we will have more income to support activities that will make the animals’ lives better,” he said.
“The benefits we get will return to the zoo to improve the life of all animals here.”
The zoo sits on 800 hectares of land and is home to more than 2,000 animals. It runs breeder programs for many endangered species like Moo Deng’s. The pygmy hippopotamus that’s native to West Africa is threatened by poaching and loss of habitat. There are only 2,000-3,000 of them left in the wild.
To help fund the initiative, the zoo is making Moo Deng shirts and pants that will be ready for sale at the end of the month, with more merchandise to come.
Narongwit believes a factor of Moo Deng’s fame is her name, which compliments her energetic and chaotic personality captured in Atthapon’s creative captions and video clips.
Appropriately, Moo Deng likes to “deng,” or bounce, and Atthapon got a lot of cute and funny moments of her giddy bouncing on social media. Even when she’s not bouncing, the hippo is endlessly cute — squirming as Atthapon tries to wash her, biting him while he was trying to play with her, calmly closing her eyes as he rubs her pinkish cheeks or her chubby belly.
Atthapon, who has worked at the zoo for eight years taking care of hippos, sloths, capybaras and binturongs, said baby hippos are usually more playful and energetic, and they become calmer as they get older.
The zoo saw a spike in visitors since Moo Deng’s fame — so much that the zoo now has to limit public access to the baby’s enclosure to five-minute windows throughout the day during weekends.
Narongwit said the zoo has been receiving over 4,000 visitors during a weekday, up from around just 800 people, and more than 10,000 during a weekend, up from around 3,000 people.
But the fame has also brought some hostile visitors to Moo Deng, who only wakes up ready to play about two hours a day. Some videos showed visitors splashing water or throwing things at the sleeping Moo Deng to try to wake her up. The hippo pit now has a warning sign against throwing things at Moo Deng — posted prominently at the front in Thai, English and Chinese.
Narongwit said the zoo would take action under the animal protection law if people mistreat the animal. But clips emerged of people treating Moo Deng poorly, and the backlash was fierce. The zoo director said that since then, they haven’t seen anyone doing it again.
For fans who can’t make the journey or are discouraged after seeing the crowds for Moo Deng, the Khao Kheow Open Zoo set up cameras and plan to start a 24-hour live feed of the baby hippo in the coming week.
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Africa needs its own medical research for its health issues, experts say
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — One of the hurdles to improving health care systems for African countries is the shortage of scientists and lack of meaningful medical research on the continent, experts say.
An organization hopes to change that by enabling researchers and policymakers in three large African countries to develop more extensive and relevant research.
According to a 2017 report by the World Economic Forum, Africa is home to 15% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s disease burden — but produces just 2% of the world’s medical research.
The report said of the medical research that does occur, much of it fails to prioritize diseases or health problems most pressing for Africans.
A group of African health researchers and institutions are now pushing for the continent’s medical research to be more focused on the continent’s own medical problems.
The African Population and Health Research Center is bringing together scientists, academics, policymakers and government officials from Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria.
Their goal is to strengthen African leadership in research and development, ensuring that the findings from these researchers are relevant and accessible to decision-makers, leading to better health care systems across the continent.
Catherine Kyobutungi, head of the organization, said African-led research can help solve health problems on the continent much more easily and quickly.
“If we want the research to be done by Africans in Africa on African issues, that is [how] the priorities for what research should be done are defined, not just by academics, but by the people who are going to use that research for decision-making,” she said.
“What we are trying to achieve is to shift what research is and what it is for and to create an army of African scientists that do research to solve African problems in real time, not after 50 years,” Kyobutungi said.
Dr. Hadiza Galadanci, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Bayero University in Nigeria, said her country accounts for about 28% of maternal deaths worldwide each year.
She and researchers from four African countries, Birmingham University in the United Kingdom and the World Health Organization published research on the best way to save women who were dying from postpartum hemorrhage, or excessive bleeding after childbirth. Their innovation — a calibrated obstetric drape, which is placed beneath a birthing mother — allows physicians to collect and precisely measure blood and fluid loss.
“The drape is just put under … the woman when she’s going to deliver. And then, as soon as she delivers, any blood that comes out goes to the drape. So, we have an objective assessment,” Galadanci explained, saying that the process allows for more specific treatment.
“When we did this, we found out that we could reduce the rate of severe [postpartum hemorrhage] leading to maternal death by 60%.”
African researchers face challenges ranging from a lack of reliable data and funding to poor infrastructure to cultural and religious issues.
With the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Africa Research Connect was developed to connect and enhance the visibility of scientists, institutions, policymakers and donors.
Jude Igumbor, an associate professor at Wits School of Public Health in South Africa, wants to improve the visibility of African scientists and their work.
“What we give African scientists is they are able to find each other for collaboration,” he said.
The African Population and Health Research Center is calling on donors to fund African institutions and researchers directly instead of going through other organizations, saying that doing so helps the money create opportunities and hone the skills of researchers on the continent.
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Climate week talks to include critical minerals and seabed mining debate
Washington — When activists, policymakers and representatives from across the globe gather next week in New York to participate in climate week, one pressing issue on the agenda that is less frequently discussed and known will be the environmental impact of seabed mining.
As countries look for ways to lower emissions, critical minerals are playing a key role in that transition. Critical minerals are used in all kinds of green technologies, from solar panels and wind turbines to batteries in electric vehicles. And one place where those mineral resources are abundant is deep under the sea.
The debate over accessing seabed resources is heated. Supporters say the technology exists to safely access these critical minerals undersea, but environmentalists and activists say the potential of undiscovered biodiversity on the seafloor is too important to endanger.
During climate week, which will take place on the sidelines of U.N. General Assembly meetings, organizers are expected to host a roundtable on the environmental impact of seabed mining and other discussions about critical minerals.
The World Economic Forum says that if the globe wants to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, two-thirds of vehicles must be powered by electric batteries. And the International Energy Agency says that to reach that goal, the world needs six times more mineral resources by 2040 than it has today.
Some of the largest mineral deposits are found on the ocean floor in the form of polymetallic nodules, or rocks.
Ocean of resources
According to the International Seabed Authority, or ISA, there are 21 billion tons of polymetallic nodules strewn across the seabed of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, or CCZ. Each nodule contains a combination of electric vehicle battery components such as nickel, manganese, copper and cobalt. The ISA plans to release regulations for mining in the international waters of the CCZ by 2025.
The ISA has already awarded 17 exploration contracts for polymetallic nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone – a large swath of the Pacific Ocean the size of the continental United States which sits between Hawaii and Mexico. Three of those exploration contracts went to The Metals Company, a Canadian deep-sea mining company.
The Pacific Island Nations of Nauru, Kiribati and Tonga have sponsored The Metals Company’s efforts to develop a portion of the seabed. In an interview with VOA, CEO Gerard Barron said the company is ready to begin as soon as the ISA allows mining.
“Our collector methodology is to put a robot on the seafloor which crawls around the ocean floor and fires a jet of water at the nodule and it creates an inverse pressure and lifts the nodule up, and so we don’t go down and scour the seafloor,” said Barron via Zoom, adding that TMC has spent the past decade focused on testing this equipment and collecting data on its environmental impact as part of its permit application to the ISA.
Moratorium needed
Critics worry scooping up these mineral-rich rocks will disrupt important biodiversity – much of it still unnamed and some of it undiscovered. Researchers have found that 90% of the more than 5,000 species in the zone are new to science. Eddie Palu, president of the Tonga Fishery Association, wants a pause for more research.
“We demand a moratorium on the seabed mining until the environmental, economic and social risk are comprehensively understood,” he said during a panel discussion at the recent Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga.
Shiva Gounden from Greenpeace Australia Pacific, who also sat on the panel, agreed.
“We know only very little of the deep sea, and the race for the final frontier could cause irreversible damages to the people and to the communities of our Pacific,” Gounden said.
But scientists say no light and very little oxygen reaches the deep sea – limiting the life there to mostly bacteria and small invertebrates.
The Metals Company’s Barron said combating climate change is a bigger threat to the planet than undersea mining, adding that the company’s environmental impact studies show that “we can safely collect these nodules” and turn them into battery metals without having “a negative impact on the ocean.”
“The notion that we can do any extraction with zero impact is a dream,” added Barron. “The oceans are impacted by every single thing we do today, especially global warming. So, we need to address the main driver for climate change and reduce emissions.”
Fueling innovation
Still, the quest to do just that – access minerals on the seabed with minimal impact to the environment – has created competition between technology companies.
U.S. tech startup Impossible Metals is testing a robot which can avoid nodules where it detects life and harvests those where it does not.
“The vehicle hovers above the seabed, uses the camera and it actually picks up the nodules one by one. So this really minimizes all of the negative concerns around big sediment plumes,” CEO Oliver Gunasekra told VOA in an interview.
Gunaskera’s company spun off Viridian Biometals. Its technology bypasses energy-intensive processes such as smelting with bacteria which can separate metal ore from the rock around it. The process creates no emissions or waste.
“The bacteria need oxygen just like we do to breathe. And when there’s not enough oxygen in the water around them, the bacteria have learned that there’s oxygen in the rocks, and they have adapted to breathe that oxygen,” said Viridian CEO Eric Macris.
Impossible Metals and Viridian Biometals say they are two to three years out from commercializing their technology, depending on funding. TMC says it could be ready to begin its collection operations as soon as international regulations are released next year.
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Faraway black hole unleashes record-setting energetic jets
washington — Two mighty beams of energy have been detected shooting in opposite directions from a supermassive black hole inside a distant galaxy — the largest such jets ever spotted, extending about 140 times the diameter of our vast Milky Way galaxy.
The black hole resides at the heart of a galaxy about 7.5 billion light-years from Earth. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion kilometers). Because of the time it takes for light to travel, looking across great distances is peering back in time, with these observations dating to when the universe was less than half its current age.
Black holes are extraordinarily dense objects with gravity so strong that not even light can escape. Most galaxies, including the Milky Way, have a large black hole at their core. Some of these shoot jets of high-energy particles and magnetic fields into space from their two poles as they devour material such as gas, dust and stars falling into them due to their immense gravitational strength.
The two jet structures documented in the new study — using the LOFAR (Low-Frequency Array) radio telescope, a network of antennas centered in the Netherlands — extend 23 million light-years from end to end.
These super-heated jets, caused by the violent events around the black hole, are composed of subatomic particles called electrons and positrons, and magnetic fields, moving at nearly the speed of light.
The researchers have nicknamed these two jets Porphyrion (pronounced poor-FEER-ee-ahn), named after a giant from ancient Greek mythology. Porphyrion is about 30% longer than the previous record-holder for such jets.
“Jet systems like Porphyrion appear to be among the most energetic spectacles that have occurred in the universe since the Big Bang,” said Caltech astrophysicist Martijn Oei, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature, referring to the event that initiated the universe about 13.8 billion years ago.
“The general understanding is that jets are formed when magnetized material falls onto a rotating black hole,” added astrophysicist and study co-author Martin Hardcastle of the University of Hertfordshire in England. “They need to be sustained by a continued infall of matter into the black hole, something of the order of one solar mass [the mass of the sun] a year of material.”
Such jets, not visible to the naked eye, start out small and grow over time.
“We’ve known for a while that black holes can generate these jets. But what is interesting is that to generate a large structure like this, the jets must stay on for a long time — about a billion years,” Hardcastle said.
The Porphyrion jets reach far beyond their home galaxy, with an energetic output equivalent to trillions of stars like the sun.
“That is equivalent to the energy released during the most cataclysmic cosmic collisions: for example, those that occur when two galaxy clusters, each sometimes containing thousands of galaxies, merge together,” Oei said.
“The fact that it extends so far from its parent black hole means that it may be carrying energy, particles and magnetic fields into the voids in the cosmic web, the gaps between groups and filaments of galaxies which we know make up the large-scale structure of the universe. This may help us to understand the ubiquitous magnetic fields in the present-day universe,” Hardcastle said.
Such jets could heat up gas in interstellar space, shutting down the formation of new stars that require cold clouds of gas, and could damage habitable planets, the researchers said.
The Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, in its current quiescent state, does not have such jets.
“The key finding is that jets from black holes can, if circumstances are right, become as large as the universe’s major cosmic structures — galaxy clusters, cosmic filaments, cosmic voids,” Oei said. “This means that individual black holes can have a sphere of influence that extends way beyond the galaxy in which they reside.”
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US targets second major Chinese hacking group
Washington — The United States has identified and taken down a botnet campaign by China-directed hackers to further infiltrate American infrastructure as well as a variety of internet-connected devices.
FBI Director Christopher Wray announced the disruption of what he called Flax Typhoon during a cyber summit Wednesday in Washington, describing it as part of a much larger campaign by Beijing.
“Flax Typhoon hijacked Internet-of-Things devices like cameras, video recorders and storage devices — things typically found across both big and small organizations,” Wray said. “And about half of those hijacked devices were located here in the U.S.”
Wray said the hackers, working under the guise of an information security company called the Integrity Technology Group, collected information from corporations, media organizations, universities and government agencies.
“They used internet-connected devices — this time, hundreds of thousands of them — to create a botnet that helped them compromise systems and exfiltrate confidential data,” he said.
But Flax Typhoon’s operations were disrupted last week when the FBI, working with allies and under court orders, took control of the botnet and pursued the hackers when they tried to switch to a backup system.
“We think the bad guys finally realized that it was the FBI and our partners that they were up against,” Wray said. “And with that realization, they essentially burned down their new infrastructure and abandoned their botnet.”
Wray said Flax Typhoon appeared to build on the exploits and tactics of another China-linked hacking group, known as Volt Typhoon, which was identified by Microsoft in May of last year.
Volt Typhoon used office network equipment, including routers, firewalls and VPN hardware, to infiltrate and disrupt communications infrastructure in Guam, home to key U.S. military facilities.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington Wednesday rejected the U.S accusations.
“Without valid evidence, the U.S. jumped to an unwarranted conclusion and made groundless accusations” Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email, responding to the allegations about Flax Typhoon.
“The U.S. itself is the origin and the biggest perpetrator of cyberattacks,” Liu added. “We urge the U.S. to stop its worldwide cyber espionage and cyberattacks, and stop smearing other countries under the excuse of cyber security.”
The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have previously warned that Chinese-government directed hackers, like Volt Typhoon, have been positioning themselves to launch destructive cyberattacks that could jeopardize the physical safety of Americans.
Following Wednesday’s announcement by the FBI, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) issued an advisory encouraging anyone with a device that was compromised by Flax Typhoon to apply needed patches.
It said that as of this past June, the Flax Typhoon botnet was making use of more than 260,000 devices in North America, Europe, Africa and Southeast East.
The NSA said almost half of the compromised devices were in the U.S. Another 18 countries, including Vietnam, Bangladesh, Albania, China, South Africa and India, were also impacted.
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‘End of an era’: UK to shut last coal-fired power plant
Ratcliffe on Soar, United Kingdom — Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station has dominated the landscape of the English East Midlands for nearly 60 years, looming over the small town of the same name and a landmark on the M1 motorway bisecting Derby and Nottingham.
At the mainline railway station serving the nearby East Midlands Airport, its giant cooling towers rise up seemingly within touching distance of the track and platform.
But at the end of this month, the site in central England will close its doors, signaling the end to polluting coal-powered electricity in the UK, in a landmark first for any G7 nation.
“It’ll seem very strange because it has always been there,” said David Reynolds, a 74-year-old retiree who saw the site being built as a child before it began operations in 1967.
“When I was younger you could go down certain parts and you saw nothing but coal pits,” he told AFP.
Energy transition
Coal has played a vital part in British economic history, powering the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries that made the country a global superpower, and creating London’s infamous choking smog.
Even into the 1980s, it still represented 70% of the country’s electricity mix before its share declined in the 1990s.
In the last decade the fall has been even sharper, slumping to 38% in 2013, 5.0% in 2018 then just 1.0% last year.
In 2015, the then Conservative government said that it intended to shut all coal-fired power stations by 2025 to reduce carbon emissions.
Jess Ralston, head of energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit think-tank, said the UK’s 2030 clean-energy target was “very ambitious.”
But she added: “It sends a very strong message that the UK is taking climate change as a matter of great importance and also that this is only the first step.”
By last year, natural gas represented a third of the UK’s electricity production, while a quarter came from wind power and 13 percent from nuclear power, according to electricity operator National Grid ESO.
“The UK managed to phase coal out so quickly largely through a combination of economics and then regulations,” Ralston said.
“So larger power plants like coal plants had regulations put on them because of all the sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxides, all the emissions coming from the plant and that meant that it was no longer economically attractive to invest in those sorts of plants.”
The new Labour government launched its flagship green energy plan after its election win in July, with the creation of a publicly owned body to invest in offshore wind, tidal power and nuclear power.
The aim is to make Britain a superpower once more, this time in “clean energy.”
As such, Ratcliffe-on-Soar’s closure on September 30 is a symbolic step in the UK’s ambition to decarbonize electricity by 2030, and become carbon neutral by 2050.
It will make the country the first in the G7 of rich nations to do away entirely with coal power electricity.
Italy plans to do so by next year, France in 2027, Canada in 2030 and Germany in 2038. Japan and the United States have no set dates.
- ‘End of an era’ –
In recent years, Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station, which had the potential to power two million homes, has been used only when big spikes in electricity use were expected, such as during a cold snap in 2022 or the 2023 heatwave.
Its last delivery of 1,650 tons of coal at the start of this summer barely supplied 500,000 homes for eight hours.
“It’s like the end of a era,” said Becky, 25, serving £4 pints behind the bar of the Red Lion pub in nearby Kegworth.
Her father works at the power station and will be out of a job. September 30 is likely to stir up strong emotions for him and the other 350 remaining employees.
“It’s their life,” she said.
Nothing remains of the world’s first coal-fired power station, which was built by Thomas Edison in central London in 1882, three years after his invention of the electric light bulb.
The same fate is slated for Ratcliffe-on-Soar: the site’s German owner, Uniper, said it will be completely dismantled “by the end of the decade.”
In its place will be a new development — a “carbon-free technology and energy hub”, the company said.
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EU court confirms Qualcomm’s antitrust fine, with minor reduction
brussels — Europe’s second-top court largely confirmed on Wednesday an EU antitrust fine imposed on U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm, revising it down slightly to $265.5 million from an initial $2.7 million.
The European Commission imposed the fine in 2019, saying that Qualcomm sold its chipsets below cost between 2009 and 2011, in a practice known as predatory pricing, to thwart British phone software maker Icera, which is now part of Nvidia Corp.
Qualcomm had argued that the 3G baseband chipsets singled out in the case accounted for just 0.7% of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) market and so it was not possible for it to exclude rivals from the chipset market.
The Court made “a detailed examination of all the pleas put forward by Qualcomm, rejecting them all in their entirety, with the exception of a plea concerning the calculation of the amount of the fine, which it finds to be well founded in part,” the Luxembourg-based General Court said.
Qualcomm can appeal on points of law to the EU Court of Justice, Europe’s highest.
The chipmaker did not immediately reply to an emailed Reuters request for comment.
The company convinced the same court two years ago to throw out a $1.1 billion antitrust fine handed down in 2018 for paying billions of dollars to Apple from 2011 to 2016 to use only its chips in all its iPhones and iPads in order to block out rivals such as Intel Corp.
The EU watchdog subsequently declined to appeal the judgment.
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Google wins challenge against $1.66B EU antitrust fine
BRUSSELS — Alphabet unit Google won its challenge on Wednesday against a $1.66 billion antitrust fine imposed five years ago for hindering rivals in online search advertising, a week after it lost a much bigger case.
The European Commission, in its 2019 decision, said Google had abused its dominance to prevent websites from using brokers other than its AdSense platform that provided search adverts. The practices it said were illegal took place from 2006 to 2016.
The Luxembourg-based General Court mostly agreed with the European Union competition enforcer’s assessments of the case, but annulled the fine.
“The court (…) upheld most of the commission’s assessments, but annulled the decision imposing a fine of almost 1.5 billion euros ($1.66 billion) on Google, on the grounds in particular that it had failed to take into account all the relevant circumstances in its assessment of the duration of the contractual clauses that it had found to be unfair,” the judges said.
The AdSense fine, one of a trio of fines that have cost Google a total of some $9 billion, was triggered by a complaint from Microsoft in 2010.
Google has said it changed the targeted contracts in 2016 before the Commission’s decision.
The company last week lost its final fight against a $2.6 billion fine levied for using its price comparison shopping service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller European rivals.
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Partial lunar eclipse will be visible during September’s supermoon
new york — Get ready for a partial lunar eclipse and supermoon, all rolled into one.
The spectacle will be visible in clear skies across North America and South America Tuesday night and in Africa and Europe Wednesday morning.
A partial lunar eclipse happens when the Earth passes between the sun and moon, casting a shadow that darkens a sliver of the moon and appears to take a bite out of it.
Since the moon will inch closer to Earth than usual, it’ll appear a bit larger in the sky. The supermoon is one of three remaining this year.
“A little bit of the sun’s light is being blocked so the moon will be slightly dimmer,” said Valerie Rapson, an astronomer at the State University of New York at Oneonta.
The Earth, moon and sun line up to produce a solar or lunar eclipse anywhere from four to seven times a year, according to NASA. This lunar eclipse is the second and final of the year after a slight darkening in March.
In April, a total solar eclipse plunged select cities into darkness across North America.
No special eye protection is needed to view a lunar eclipse. Viewers can stare at the moon with the naked eye or opt for binoculars and telescopes to get a closer look.
To spot the moon’s subtle shrinkage over time, hang outside for a few hours or take multiple peeks over the course of the evening, said KaChun Yu, curator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
“From one minute to the next, you might not see much happening,” said Yu.
For a more striking lunar sight, skywatchers can set their calendars for March 13. The moon will be totally eclipsed by the Earth’s shadow and will be painted red by stray bits of sunlight filtering through Earth’s atmosphere.
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Zimbabwe starts providing free treatment for women with obstetric fistula
Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s government has given in to pressure from rights groups and is now providing free treatment to women with obstetric fistula, a condition that makes it hard for mothers who went through difficult labor to control their bowels. For a closer look, VOA visited Chinhoyi, a farming and mining area about 150 kilometers west of Harare, where early marriages are common, and where the treatment is being offered.
Among the first beneficiaries of the treatment were young women at Chinhoyi Provincial Hospital after government gynecologists had performed surgery to address their cases of obstetric fistula. Twenty-three-year old Chiedza, not her real name as she requested that VOA protect her identity, was visibly happy as she had not been able to control her bowels since giving birth to her son seven years ago.
“When I gave birth I tore my private parts, so I couldn’t hold my feces,” she said. “It would just come out on its own. I would just feel something on my body flowing. I stayed like that because I did not have money to seek services of gynecologists to correct my condition. So, when I heard about this free service on a WhatsApp group for women, I called a toll-free number which was there and I came here. So I am now going to live a comfortable life. I can now perform even house chores comfortably.”
Another woman who asked to be called Tendai ruptured her bladder after protracted labor at home while giving birth at the age of 16.
“I would share nappies with my baby so as to block my smell from others,” she said. “At one time I almost committed suicide because people kept on laughing at my condition. I thought I had been bewitched till I came here and saw that there are some people in my condition. I am grateful for this procedure for it has given me hope.”
The World Health Organization estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 women experience obstetric fistula every year and that about 2 million women in sub-Saharan Africa are living with the condition.
Dr. Stanley Ngwaru, a senior gynecologist in Zimbabwe’s ministry of health, says the condition is an abnormal communication between the woman’s genital tract and the urinary tract or the rectum.
“They suffer shame and they suffer social segregation,” he said. “It’s very common in young women, because the genital tract is not well developed and when they go into labor, they are more likely to suffer from obstruction and this can lead to these communications are developing between the genital tract and the unit tract and the rectum.”
Lucia Masuka, head of Amnesty International in Zimbabwe, says she commends the government for offering the free service. However, she believes authorities needs to develop a strategy to help prevent this condition from afflicting young women in the first place.
“If we therefore facilitate access to sexual reproductive health services for this group, it will reduce instances of early pregnancies, and in turn, reduce cases of obstetrics fistula,” she said. “Whilst treatment is a positive development, it’s akin to trying to mop water from an open tap; you will never really be able to mop that water as long as the tap is open.”
Amnesty International in Zimbabwe last year pleaded with parliament to push the government to make obstetric fistula treatment a national issue after its research had revealed that the condition was rampant among young women in Zimbabwe and was not getting enough attention.
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