South Africa, which has the largest population of rhinos in the world, has been the country hit hardest by poaching. Between 2007 and 2015, there was a 9,000% increase in poaching there, reaching a high of 1,215 animals in 2014. While numbers have been declining since then, poaching remains a problem. But as Faith Lapidus reports, technology is helping turn one game reserve into a high-tech fortress.
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Researchers with the British Antarctic Survey say the second largest Antarctic breeding site for the Emperor Penguin is now simply empty. What happened to all those penguins? VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Officials in Pakistan and the United Nations are investigating causes of a new outbreak of HIV infections in a southern district where nearly 400 people have been diagnosed in less than two weeks. Officials confirmed Saturday that nearly 80% of those infected are children, with nearly half of them under age 5.

Local media began reporting about the epidemic two weeks ago from Larkana, a district of Sindh province, which has already experienced three outbreaks in recent years. A local doctor who treated several patients with a single needle and syringe was blamed for spreading the virus, which causes AIDS. 

 

The provincial government rushed teams of public health workers to the district, with an estimated population of 1.5 million, to quickly assess the situation and mobilize resources to curtail further spread of HIV. More than 9,000 people have since been subjected to screening in the affected district, and the process is continuing, Sikandar Memon, the provincial head of the AIDS Control Program, told reporters.

 

A UNAIDS spokeswoman told VOA that international partners had joined local teams to help quickly carry out an outbreak investigation and address the acute needs of the people infected with HIV, including immediately linking them to treatment, care and support services. 

 

The spokeswoman, Fahmida Khan, said efforts were being made to ensure that unsafe injection and blood transfusion practices were being stopped. She also noted that there were unconfirmed reports of similar HIV outbreaks in surrounding districts. 

​Focus of problem

Sindh, with a population of nearly 48 million, accounts for 43% of an estimated 150,000 people living with HIV in Pakistan. 

 

U.N. officials say since 2010, there has been a 57% increase in new HIV/AIDS infections in Pakistan. They noted that among all identified HIV cases in Pakistan, 43,000 are females. 

Last year, an estimated 20,000 people were newly identified with HIV in Pakistan and 6,200 people died of AIDS, according to local and U.N. officials. 

 

Khan would not comment on the reasons for the high number of HIV infections among children and the potential causes of the latest outbreak in Larkana, saying “further investigations and epidemiological review is yet required and suggested.” 

 

Provincial authorities also have launched a high-level investigation to ascertain the veracity of the allegations against the local doctor, who already has been taken into police custody. 

Some also blame unsafe injection practices by quack doctors for contributing to the spread of HIV. Government officials estimate about 600,000 unqualified doctors are unlawfully operating in Pakistan and 270,000 of them are practicing in Sindh. 

 

Critics also blame lapses in Pakistan’s national health system, the low priority given to the problem, corruption, the recent abolition of the federal health ministry and the delegation of its functions to the provinces for the worsening health sector situation and the increase in HIV infections. 

Pakistani and U.N. officials say the HIV epidemic in Pakistan remains largely concentrated among key populations, including people who inject drugs, the transgender community, sex workers and their clients, and men who have sex with men.
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Nearly every country in the world has agreed upon a legally binding framework to reduce the pollution from plastic waste except for the United States, U.N. environmental officials say.

An agreement on tracking thousands of types of plastic waste emerged Friday at the end of a two-week meeting of U.N.-backed conventions on plastic waste and toxic, hazardous chemicals.

Discarded plastic clutters pristine land, floats in huge masses in oceans and rivers and entangles wildlife, sometimes with deadly results.

Rolph Payet of the United Nations Environment Program said the “historic” agreement linked to the 186-country, U.N.-supported Basel Convention means that countries will have to monitor and track the movements of plastic waste outside their borders.

The deal affects products used in a broad array of industries, such as health care, technology, aerospace, fashion, food and beverages.

“It’s sending a very strong political signal to the rest of the world — to the private sector, to the consumer market — that we need to do something,” Payet said. “Countries have decided to do something which will translate into real action on the ground.”

Countries will have to figure out their own ways of adhering to the accord, Payet said. Even the few countries that did not sign it, like the United States, could be affected by the accord when they ship plastic waste to countries that are on board with the deal.

Payet credited Norway for leading the initiative, which first was presented in September. The time from that proposal to the approval of a deal set a blistering pace by traditional U.N. standards for such an accord.

The framework “is historic in the sense that it is legally binding,” Payet said. “They (the countries) have managed to use an existing international instrument to put in place those measures.”

The agreement is likely to lead to customs agents being on the lookout for electronic waste or other types of potentially hazardous waste more than before.

“There is going to be a transparent and traceable system for the export and import of plastic waste,” Payet said.

 
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Dementia is a rapidly growing public health problem around the world. Fifty million people suffer from dementia, and in the next 30 years, that number is expected to triple.

Researchers are looking for ways to treat or prevent dementia, and a promising clinical trial is underway in the U.S.

Dementia is not a normal part of aging, but age is a huge risk factor. Regular exercise, a healthy diet, maintaining healthy blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels help stave off dementia as we grow older

As people around the world live longer, health agencies and researchers are looking for ways to prevent, stop or treat dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, one of the most common types of dementia.

Promising clinical trial

David Shorr was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at 56.He is about to undergo a new procedure that could treat early stage Alzheimer’s. He is with his doctor, Vibhor Krishna, a neurosurgeon at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center.

The procedure Shorr is about to have involves sound waves. Ultrasound waves target and open the blood-brain barrier — a protective layer that shields the brain from infections. But Krishna says the barrier also makes it hard to treat neurodegerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

“Opening the blood-brain barrier allows us to access more of the brain tissue and be able to increase the effectiveness or bioavailability of the therapeutics,” Krishna said.

Shorr and his wife, Kim, were willing to try any new treatment that might help with his dementia. Kim describes the couple’s reaction when they received a phone call inviting Shorr to participate in a clinical trial.

“There’s this trial. Would you be interested?” she said, describing the call. “And without really knowing what it was, we said, Sure.’”

Ultrasound targets protein buildup

Shorr became one of 10 patients enrolled in the study. The trial tests MRI-guided imaging to target the part of the brain responsible for memory and cognition. Krishna explains that’s where Alzheimer’s patients have a buildup of toxic proteins called amyloid.

“Higher deposition of amyloid goes hand in hand with loss of function in Alzheimer’s disease,” he said.

Krishna says this procedure might allow a patient’s own immune system to clear some of the amyloid.

In this procedure, ultrasound wave pulses cause microscopic bubbles to expand and contract in the brain.

“The increase and decrease in size of these microbubbles mechanically opens the blood-brain barrier,” Krishna said.

The patient is awake during the procedure.

Study could help others

Opening the barrier may one day allow doctors to deliver medication straight to the site of the disease.

Kim Shorr realizes her husband might not benefit from this treatment.

“We’re hopeful it can help him, but we also know maybe it will help somebody else,” she said.

Shorr is glad to be part of a study that could help others who are in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, even if it doesn’t help him.
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Dementia is a rapidly growing public health problem throughout the world. Fifty million people suffer from dementia, and in the next 30 years, that number is expected to triple. Researchers are looking for ways to treat or prevent dementia, and VOA’s Carol Pearson reports some of the work being done is promising.
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It’s 9 o’clock in the morning, time for 3-year-old Lucas’ weekly music therapy session.

“Lucas is autistic,” his mother Katey Hernandez explained. “He has a lot of sensory processing sensitivities, which means he’s really sensitive to loud noises, bright lights and a lot of [activity] around his body, and he really likes to jump and swing and climb and anything active.”

Music therapist Dixie Mazur brings to Lucas’ home session a bag full of instruments. During the session she plays music and sings.

“I like to bring in a wide variety of instruments because, especially with younger kids, the attention spans naturally are very short and I like to be able to give them the freedom and ownership to kind of move our session in the direction they want to go,” Mazur said.

She brings in a piano, a couple of drums, rain stick and egg shakers, “things that provide a lot of sensory feedback as well.”

Hernandez is happy with the results so far.

“It’s been very helpful,” she said. “Ms. Dixie has come up with a few songs to help him with social dialogue. So, it helps him communicate with us a lot more, when we can’t figure out what he needs.”

Healing soul and body

Music has long helped people express their emotions and connect with one another. Over the years, medical studies have shown that music has many health benefits, too. Those range from facilitating regular breathing and lifting mood to improving emotional function and motor control in patients.

So, music has become a part of the therapists’ toolbox, used either in one-on-one sessions or group settings. It can be passive, where patients listen to music, or active, where they participate in playing instruments and singing.

Zoe Gleason Volz brings music therapy to a group of people with a range of cognitive disabilities.

“As a group, they don’t really engage with each other,” she said. “So, a lot of my work is trying to slowly get them to positively engage with their fellow group members and actively engage with me.”

The instruments stimulate patients’ senses and muscles. She says the impact is obvious on brain scans of people listening to music. 

“When you’re listening to music the entire brain is lit up because it’s having the music and the intellectual sides both kind of firing all at once. Whereas when you’re talking with somebody, you’re probably more into one hemisphere of the brain rather than both.”

Becoming a music therapist

There are more than 6,000 board-certified music therapists in the United States. They’ve gone through 1,000 hours of training, including getting an undergraduate degree and completing a six-month internship, and passing a certification exam.

But music therapist Kelsi Yingling, who founded NeuroSound Music Therapy, where Gleason Volz and Mazur work, looks for more than a certificate. 

“The type of skills we wanted to see in a music therapist are strong musical skills, interpersonal skills and the ability to relate to our clients,” she said.

Music therapists should be patient and able to adapt to various situations, she says, adding that the work is easier when therapists have passion for music and for helping people. 

“The fact that I get to use music to help other individuals achieve their goals and their highest potential is really one of the most rewarding things I can be doing in my life,” she added.
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Music has long helped people express their emotions and connect with one another. Over the years, medical studies have proved that music has many health benefits, too. They range from facilitating regular breathing and lifting mood to improving emotional function and motor control in patients. Faiza Elmasry tells us more about music therapy. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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Contributors include Erikas Mwisi reporting from Beni, North Kivu; Margaret Basheer from the United Nations; and Eddy Isango, James Butty and Carol Guensburg from Washington.

Armed attacks, misinformation and a growing funding gap continue to impede the response to the Ebola outbreak in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, with the World Health Organization warning that the situation could spiral out of control.

Insecurity leaves response teams “unable to perform robust surveillance nor deliver much needed treatment and immunizations,” the WHO reported Friday in its latest update on the outbreak confirmed last August. The health organization warned that “without commitment from all groups to cease these attacks, it is unlikely that this EVD [Ebola virus disease] outbreak can remain successfully contained in North Kivu and Ituri provinces.”

The disease could spill into other parts of the country and across the borders of neighboring Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan, the health organization suggested.

This month alone has brought setbacks such as a violent assault on a burial team in the town of Katwa and a gunfight between at least 50 armed militia and security forces in the city of Butembo, WHO reported. Mourners also buried Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung, a 41-year-old Cameroonian doctor killed April 19 while working for WHO and meeting with other front-line workers at Butembo University Hospital.

The threats continue.

On Thursday, a VOA correspondent in Butembo saw a series of letters scattered on a street, each weighted down with pebbles. Written in Swahili and attributed to Mai-Mai fighters, the letters warned police, soldiers and the general public against showing any support for Ebola responders or treatment centers. 

Anderson Djumah, whose 10-year-old son is being treated for Ebola at the general hospital in the North Kivu town of Beni, complained that “the lack of security has just added more suffering.”

“Even Ebola treatment centers are targeted by the assailants. We’re afraid. Ebola is killing so many people. We’re still expecting that the government would be able to protect us,” he said. “… [But] some people who are sick with Ebola are fleeing to other places for their lives and are meanwhile spreading the sickness.”

Complications for care

Violence sends people into hiding and disrupts response operations such as contact tracing, vaccination and safe burials, giving “time and space to the virus to spread within the community and make more victims,” Jessica Ilunga, spokeswoman for the DRC’s health ministry, told VOA.

“Every time we have a security incident, the number of cases and deaths obviously increases,” Ilunga said.

The health ministry, leading the response with WHO’s help, reported 1,600 total cases as of Wednesday, with 1,534 confirmed and 66 likely. This second-worst Ebola outbreak already has claimed 1,069 lives. The 2014-15 West African outbreak killed more than 11,000.

Many of the victims have died at home, potentially exposing others to the disease and leaving gaps in how — and to whom — the virus may have been transmitted.

“You don’t know who those contacts are,” said epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and principal investigator for the Outbreak Observatory, a project of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “… Chances are you can’t offer them vaccines or treatment.”

Funding for the Ebola response has fallen far short of need, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said in an email to VOA Wednesday. As of May 2, WHO had received $32.5 million of the $87 million it estimated needing for six months ending in July.

“If the funds are not received,” Jasarevic wrote, “WHO will be unable to sustain the response at the current scale.” 

​New challenges in 10th DRC outbreak

This is the DRC’s 10th reported outbreak since the virus’ discovery near the Ebola River in 1976. The country has proved adept at snuffing out past outbreaks of Ebola, which has been found in bats, monkeys and other animals sometimes consumed as “bush meat.” The virus spreads through contact with an infected person’s body fluids.

Ebola was unfamiliar in the northeast, a region already destabilized by at least two decades of conflict. More than 100 armed groups roam the area, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

High mobility and population density also raise the potential that the virus could cross into Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan. (The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been providing technical guidance to the DRC and its neighbors, for instance, helping them ramp up surveillance and vaccination tracking.)

Wary public

Skepticism also factors into the Ebola equation. The northeast is an opposition stronghold, and its residents were angered to be kept from voting in December’s general elections, as former U.S. diplomat John Campbell pointed out in a Council on Foreign Relations blog post.

A study published in The Lancet medical journal in March found low public trust in local authorities and broad acceptance of misinformation about Ebola. Just a third of the 961 respondents — adults surveyed in North Kivu’s Beni and Butembo last fall — said they had confidence that local authorities acted in the public interest. A fourth indicated they didn’t believe Ebola exists.

Mistrust and misinformation make it less likely that individuals will heed public safety directives, such as accepting Ebola vaccines, seeking formal medical care or supporting safe burial practices, the researchers noted.

That mistrust can be weaponized, as Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders experienced. Two of the international aid group’s Ebola treatment centers, in Katwa and Butembo, were attacked in February. MSF suspended services there, saying its ability to respond in the outbreak’s epicenter had been “crippled.” 

Anne-Marie Pegg, MSF’s clinical lead for epidemic response, said some Congolese look critically at the disparity between local clinics, which, if they exist, might lack basics such as running water and electricity, and the better-equipped Ebola treatment centers set up by international aid groups.

“Very little investment has gone into the existing health structures and the existing health system, and people notice this,” Pegg said. She said MSF, in “numerous interactions,” has heard complaints that international groups are involved “‘only because we [locals] are contagious and we’re a threat to you.’

“It’s not surprising that something like Ebola can be manipulated for any variety of reasons,” Pegg added. “… Absolutely, there are interest groups from all sides that are trying to use this.”

MSF continues to work in the region while pressing for “better integration of Ebola treatment into the health care system,” Pegg said. The virus’ early symptoms, such as headaches and muscle pain, are indistinguishable from those of malaria or other more common ailments, so “it’s difficult for someone who’s sick to think, ‘I have Ebola.’ So the capacity to isolate someone who may have an Ebola infection and test for that … needs to happen at a local level” rather than sending patients to a treatment center. “It would be nice if those people could be treated closer to home” and started on treatment while awaiting test results. If the virus is confirmed, then transfer the patient to an Ebola treatment center, “which is the best place.”

But, she said, MSF’s goal is to treat whatever ailment a patient might have.

​Vaccine plans revised

As Ebola infections rise, a WHO advisory group this week recommended that an approved vaccine be distributed more widely in smaller doses and that an experimental vaccine, developed by Johnson & Johnson, also be offered. More than 100,000 doses of the approved Merck vaccine have been distributed since August, but supplies are running low. The dosage would be halved from the current 1 milliliter for the primary and secondary “ring vaccination,” which prescribes inoculation for anyone in contact with an infected person. Eligibility would be expanded through “pop-up and targeted geographic approaches” in high-risk areas.

“We know that vaccination is saving lives in this outbreak,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

The advisory group also recommended more training for local health workers.
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The United Nations released a new global report on the environment this week. It says the decline of nature is unprecedented, and species extinction is accelerating. The study warns that many factors are having a severe impact, including climate change, pollution, deforestation, and invasive plants and animals. In South Africa, the Garden Route National Park is located along one of the country’s most beautiful stretches of coastline. It is also a place where a large number of invasive plants have taken over. VOA’s Deborah Block takes us there to find out how officials are working to keep them at bay.
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The World Health Organization warned Friday that it may not be possible to contain Ebola to the two affected provinces in eastern Congo if violent attacks on health teams continue.

The ominous statement comes amid escalating violence nine months after the outbreak began, crippling efforts to identify suspected cases in the community and vaccinate those most at risk. Earlier this week, Mai-Mai militia fighters attacked the town of Butembo at the epicenter of the crisis. 

 

Friday’s update also noted that a burial team had been “violently attacked” after they interred an Ebola victim in the town of Katwa. The corpses of victims are highly contagious, requiring special precautions to ensure the disease is not transmitted at funerals.

Nearly five days of Ebola response activities were halted in Butembo and surrounding areas recently because of the insecurity, WHO said.

“The ongoing violent attacks sow fear, perpetuate mistrust, and further compound the multitude of challenges already faced by frontline health care workers,” it said. “Without commitment from all groups to cease these attacks, it is unlikely that this (Ebola) outbreak can remain successfully contained in North Kivu and Ituri provinces.”

The outbreak, which has killed 1,069 people, marks the first time that Ebola has struck inside a conflict zone. Eastern Congo has suffered decades of violence perpetrated by warring rebel groups and militias awash in arms. 

 

The affected area, though, is also close to Congo’s borders with Uganda and Rwanda, and health officials in both countries have been preparing in case someone sick with Ebola should bring the disease across international borders.

WHO efforts

WHO and others have previously said that the risk of that happening was low. The difficulties in accessing some of the hardest hit areas in Congo, though, means that health workers are struggling to isolate the sick, and track down and isolate their caregivers and family members. 

 

About half of those dying remained in their homes instead of seeking treatment at Ebola health centers, giving the virus an opportunity to spread to those in physical contact with victims.

Amid the rising number of cases, WHO said Friday that an advisory group was now recommending that those at high risk of contracting Ebola be given a vaccine dose of 0.5mL of vaccine instead of 1mL. The group is proposing that the vaccine be given more widely, including to those living in communities where there have been recent Ebola cases.

In addition to the risks posed by militias there also has been widespread community mistrust in eastern Congo, a byproduct of years of conflict and grievances with the government. WHO said it was aiming to have the majority vaccine teams comprised of local health workers by the end of the month in an effort to reduce tensions. 
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Nigerian authorities say the country is losing more than $1 billion annually to medical tourism as tens of thousands of Nigerians travel abroad in search of the best treatment. Nigeria’s Health Ministry says it is building six world class health centers to address the issue; but, as Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja, not even the president seems to trust health care in Nigeria.
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Britain’s young royals, brothers Prince William and Prince Harry and their wives Kate and Meghan, launched a new phone messaging service Friday to help people suffering a mental health crisis.

The two princes have been widely praised for speaking out about their own struggles with mental health in the wake of the death of their mother, Princess Diana, in a 1997 car crash and have made the issue one of their main charitable causes.

Shout

The new text messaging service, called “Shout,” aims to provide 24/7 support for people suffering from crises such as suicidal thoughts, abuse, relationship problems and bullying by connecting them to trained volunteers and helping them find longer-term support.

“We are incredibly excited to be launching this service, knowing it has the potential to reach thousands of vulnerable people every day,” the four royals said in a statement. “We have all been able to see the service working up close and are so excited for its future. We hope that many more of you will join us and be part of something very special.”

The service is particularly aimed at younger people and using text messaging means it is silent and private, allowing people to use it at school, on a bus or at home, the organizers said. 

Appeal for volunteers

As part of the launch, William appears in a video appealing for people to come forward as the service seeks to expand from 1,000 to 4,000 volunteers.

The initiative is one of the first to involve the quartet of royals who are joint patrons of the Royal Foundation, their primary vehicle for helping charities and good causes and which is supporting the Shout scheme.

It comes after the British media has been rife with speculation of a rift between the brothers and their wives, although there has been no public indication of any disagreements.

On Monday, Meghan, 37, and Harry, 34, celebrated the birth of their first child Archie, with William, 36, and Kate, 37, saying they were absolutely thrilled at the news.
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Billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos unveiled on Thursday a mockup of a lunar lander being built by his Blue Origin rocket company and touted his moon goals in a strategy aimed at capitalizing on the Trump administration’s renewed push to establish a lunar outpost in just five years.

The world’s richest man and Amazon.com Inc’s chief executive waved an arm and a black drape behind him dropped to reveal the two-story-tall mockup of the unmanned lander dubbed Blue Moon during an hour-long presentation at Washington’s convention center, just several blocks from the White House.

The lander will be able to deliver payloads to the lunar surface, deploy up to four smaller rovers and shoot out satellites to orbit the moon, Bezos told the audience, which included NASA officials and potential Blue Moon customers.

His media event followed Vice President Mike Pence’s March 26 announcement that NASA plans to build a space platform in lunar orbit and put American astronauts on the moon’s south pole by 2024 “by any means necessary,” four years earlier than previously planned.

“I love this,” Bezos said of Pence’s timeline. “We can help meet that timeline but only because we started three years ago. It’s time to go back to the moon, this time to stay.”

While Bezos went out of his way to praise Pence’s timeline,   the billionaire has been the target of repeated criticism from President Donald Trump, who has referred to him as Jeff “Bozo.” Bezos also owns the Washington Post, which Trump has frequently targeted in his broadsides against the news media.

In their lunar ambitions, however, Trump and Bezos are very much in harmony. Trump in 2017 made a return to the moon a high priority for the U.S. space program, saying a mission to put astronauts back on the lunar surface would establish a foundation for an eventual journey to put humans on Mars. If re-elected next year, 2024 would be Trump’s final full year in office.

At his presentation, Bezos unveiled a model of one of the proposed rovers, roughly the size of a golf cart, and presented a new rocket engine called BE-7, which can blast 10,000 pounds (4,535 kg) of thrust.

Blue Origin’s ambitions

Privately held Blue Origin, based in Kent, Washington, is developing its New Shepard rocket for short space tourism trips and a heavy-lift launch rocket called New Glenn for satellite launch contracts.

 A Blue Origin executive told Reuters last month New Glenn rocket would be ready by 2021. Bezos on Thursday said launching humans on suborbital flights would take place later this year on New Shepard.

Blue Origin has previously discussed a human outpost on the moon.

During his presentation, which sounded at times more like a professorial lecture than a business plan, Bezos did not address a specific launch schedule for the lander or a specific mission for it.

NASA has set its sights on the moon’s south pole, a region believed to hold enough recoverable ice water for use in synthesizing additional rocket fuel as well as for drinking water to sustain astronauts.

Bezos, intent on moving Blue Origin closer to commercialization, underscored his broader vision of enabling a future in which millions of people live and work in space. He mentioned two important issues: reducing launch costs and using resources already in space.

“One of the most important things we know about the moon today is that there’s water there,” Bezos said. “It’s in the form of ice. It’s in the permanently shadowed craters on the poles of the moon.”

His announcement came about two months before the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, and he began his presentation with video of that event.

Bezos did not address his company’s Twitter post last month teasing the event with a picture of the ship used by explorer Ernest Shackleton on a 1914 expedition to Antarctica. Industry sources said the image was a likely reference to an impact crater on the lunar south pole sharing the man’s name, raising speculation that Blue Origin’s lander was targeting that spot.

His vision is shared by competing billionaire-backed private space ventures like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and aerospace incumbents like United Launch Alliance, a partnership between Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin.
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The European Union’s 28 countries consume the Earth’s resources faster than they can be renewed and none of them has sustainable consumption policies, a report released Thursday said, as EU leaders met to discuss priorities for the next five years.

“All EU countries are living beyond the means of our planet. The EU and its citizens are currently using twice more than the EU ecosystems can renew,”  the report  by the World Wide Fund (WWF) and Global Footprint Network said.

It was issued as leaders met in the Romanian city of Sibiu to set the course for the bloc after Britain’s planned departure from the EU.

Climate change key priority

French President Emmanuel Macron said before the summit that climate change was among his key priorities and it was included in the bloc’s 10 “commitments” for the future until 2024, agreed by all the 27 leaders meeting in Sibiu.

But the bloc is divided on how to achieve any ambitious climate goals and it remains far from clear how the Sibiu declaration would be implemented.

Some 100 Greenpeace activists and students from several European countries marched through Sibiu carrying a huge banner saying “Broken Climate Broken Future.”

“We cannot talk about a prosperous future without a healthy climate,” Greenpeace climate activist Alin Tanase told Reuters.

Views on concrete action to be taken to combat climate change differ between EU countries, influenced greatly by their dominant industries, such as carmakers in Germany or the coal industry in Poland.

Tusk sensitive to climate change

The chairman of the summit, President of the European Council Donald Tusk, said there was no future for politicians who were not sensitive to climate change and environment protection issues.

“The young generation is much more united on this than the member states. The truth is that nothing has changed when it comes to this divide and different opinions about this. What is new is this very fresh and energetic pressure,” he told a news conference after the summit.

Climate protection and sustainable development is also an important topic in the election campaign for the May 23-26 European Parliament elections, which will influence the leadership of European institutions and their programs.

The European Commission has been pushing for the EU to become climate neutral by 2050 through reducing carbon emissions that will otherwise boost the Earth’s average temperatures with devastating consequences.

“The EU uses up almost 20 percent of the Earth’s bio-capacity although it comprises only 7 percent of the world population,” the WWF report said.

“In other words, 2.8 planets would be needed if everyone consumed at the rate of the average EU resident,” it said.

Luxembourg smallest but fastest

It said the EU’s smallest and richest country, Luxembourg, was also the one which used up renewable resources the fastest last year. Just 46 days into the year, it had consumed its full share of the Earth’s resources, it said.

The EU’s poorest nation, Romania, took the longest to arrive at that point, on July 12th. But that was still earlier than the world’s average of Aug. 1, called Earth overshoot day.
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Archaeologists say an underground chamber discovered accidentally by road workers may be the site of the earliest Christian royal burial in Britain.

The chamber was uncovered between a road and a railway line in the village of Prittlewell in 2003. It turned out to be a 1,400-year-old burial site containing items that were interred with whoever was buried there.

The contents included a golden belt buckle, remnants of a harp, glassware and an elaborate water vessel.

New details of archaeological findings were announced Thursday.

Researchers say the luxury burial items indicate the chamber’s occupant was of high standing, possibly a prince. Two gold-foil crosses at the head of the coffin suggest a Christian burial.

Sophie Jackson, director of research and engagement at Museum of London Archaeology, called the discovery “our equivalent of Tutankhamun’s tomb.”
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President Donald Trump will begin a push Thursday to fight health care sticker shock by limiting “surprise medical bills,” the unexpected charges faced by insured patients when a member of a health care team that treated them is not in their insurer’s network.

Senior administration officials told The Associated Press the Republican president will outline principles he can support as part of legislation to limit such billing practices. Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been trying to make progress on the topic for months, and White House support improves chances that something will get done.

Patients being treated for medical emergencies often are in no position to check into whether their insurers have contracted with their surgeons or anesthesiologists to provide medical care. Trump wants to make it clear that patients who receive emergency care should not be hit with charges that exceed the amount paid to in-network providers.

“Surprise” bills amounting to tens of thousands of dollars can hit patients and their families when they are most vulnerable — after a medical emergency or following a complex surgical procedure. Often patients are able to negotiate lower charges by working with their insurers and the medical provider. But the process usually takes months, adding stress and anxiety.

The officials said the legislation also should protect patients seeking elective care by ensuring that they are fully informed before scheduling their care about which providers will be considered out of network and what extra costs that will generate.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter before Trump’s announcement. The White House effort is part of a broader push by the Trump administration to increase transparency in the health care system. On Wednesday, the administration finalized regulations requiring drug companies to disclose list prices of medications costing more than $35 for a month’s supply.

The president also will make the case that legislation should not lead to additional costs for taxpayers.

Insurers form networks of doctors and hospitals, in part, to gain some leverage for negotiating reimbursements. Usually patients pay a bigger share of the bill for any care sought outside those networks.

But sometimes, patients don’t know they got care outside of their network until they get their bill.

A House panel held a hearing on surprise medical bills last month. Trump also participated in a January meeting with health care advocates and victims of surprise billing. The officials said Trump made clear following the meeting that he wanted his administration to work on finding a fix.

States also have been working to protect consumers from surprise medical bills. A survey of states by Georgetown University found that about half the states have acted to protect consumers, but some, such as California, Connecticut, Florida and a handful of others, have the most comprehensive protections. But states don’t have jurisdiction over most health plans sponsored by large employers, which cover about 100 million people and operate under the umbrella of a federal law.

A coalition that includes major insurers, business groups, and consumer organizations has been pressing Congress for federal legislation. The basic elements would include informing patients when a doctor or service provider is out-of-network, setting a federal standard for what out-of-network clinicians can charge, and guaranteeing that the changes do not lead to premium increases.

But a major hang-up has been agreeing on payment rates for out-of-network services that are mutually acceptable to medical specialists, hospitals and insurers, who have conflicting interests.

Jack Hoadley, a research professor emeritus at Georgetown, told lawmakers last month that unexpected medical bills are a major concern for consumers, with two-thirds of Americans saying they are “very worried” or “somewhat worried” that they or someone in their family will receive a surprise bill.

He said programs like Medicare, Medicaid and veterans care protect consumers from out-of-network bills. But the same protections do not exist for most private insurance.

 

 
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As the planet heats up, it’s not just extreme weather that’s causing trouble but also the unintended consequences of that heat, in the case of some European forests it’s creating fertile ground for spruce bark beetles. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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The United States will soon require pharmaceutical companies to disclose the price of their drugs during television commercials, a measure which President Donald Trump on Wednesday welcomed as “historic transparency.”

It is part of a US government policy to fight the high price of prescription drugs, which often exceeds those in neighboring Canada and Mexico. 

The price will have to be displayed at the end of the ads, in the same manner as side effects which already must be mentioned. 

United States television prominently features ads for medicines — and not just common cold and similar remedies but treatments for complex conditions.

The requirement will take effect in 60 days.

It covers drugs priced at least $35 for a normal treatment or a month’s supply.

“American patients deserve to know the prices of the healthcare they receive,” said Alex Azar, the Health and Human Services Secretary.

The 10 most viewed drugs on television cost between $488 and $16,938 a month, according to the government. 

About half of Americans have health insurance with a high deductible which can reach thousands of dollars a year, in many cases more than $5,000 or $6,000 anually.

This means they usually have to pay the full displayed drug price until they have spent the their annual deductible amount.

Those with better coverage pay a fraction of the list price, and the situation can vary enormously from one person to another. 

On Twitter, Trump hailed the “big announcement.”

“Drug companies have to come clean about their prices in TV ads,” he said. “If drug companies are ashamed of those prices-lower them!”

Trump has vowed that his Republicans will become “the party of great healthcare.” He is seeking to dismantle “Obamacare,” the Affordable Care Act which brought healthcare coverage for millions more Americans when it took effect under then president Barack Obama.
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VOA U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. 

Officials in Mozambique are scrambling to contain a cholera outbreak in the north of the country after Cyclone Kenneth devastated the area last month.

Kenneth, the second cyclone to hit the country in five weeks, destroyed health clinics and contaminated the water supply. 

The World Health Organization estimates there are “nearly 190,000 people in need of health assistance or are at risk of diseases in Mozambique,” U.N. spokeswoman Stephane Dujarric said. 

Kenneth struck while Mozambique was still struggling to deal with the impact of Cyclone Idai, which hammered the country’s central region just weeks earlier, flattening the port city of Beira and killing more than 1,000 people across Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe.

According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, cholera cases in Cabo Delgado Province have risen almost five-fold to 64 since the outbreak was declared last week. 

Medical relief agencies such as Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, are supporting the Ministry of Health by providing materials such as tents, water and sanitation equipment for a cholera treatment center in Pemba. 

“We have two essential goals now: saving the lives of severely sick patients and containing the outbreak,” said Danielle Borges, MSF project coordinator in Pemba. “We need to isolate and treat sick people so they recover, and so that they do not contaminate others.”

About half a million cholera vaccines are expected to arrive in the region in the next few days. 
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The United Nations Secretary-General said the world must dramatically change the way it fuels factories, vehicles and homes to limit future warming to a level scientists call nearly impossible.

That’s because the alternative “would mean a catastrophic situation for the whole world,” Antonio Guterres told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview.

Guterres said he’s about to tour Pacific islands to see how climate change is devastating them as part of his renewed push to fight it. He is summoning world leaders to the U.N. in September to tell them “they need to do much more in order for us to be able to reverse the present trends and to defeat the climate change.”

That means, he said, the world has to change, not in small incremental ways but in big “transformative” ways, into a green economy with electric vehicles and “clean cities.”

Guterres said he will ask leaders to stop subsidizing fossil fuels. Burning coal, oil and gas triggers warming by releasing heat-trapping gases.

He said he wants countries to build no new coal power plants after 2020. He wants them to put a price on the use of carbon. And ultimately he wants to make sure that by 2050 the world is no longer putting more greenhouse gases into the air than nature sucks out.

Global temperatures have already risen about 1.8 degrees (1 degree Celsius) since the industrial age began. The issue is how much more the thermometers will rise.

In 2015, the world’s nations set a goal to limit global warming to no more than 0.9 degrees (0.5 degrees Celsius) from now. Most scientists say it is highly unlikely, if not outright undoable, to keep man-made climate change that low, especially since emissions of heat trapping gases are rising, renewable energy growth is plateauing, and some countries’ leaders and voters are balking.A panel of scientists the U.N. asked to look at the issue ran computer models for more than 500 future scenarios, and less than 2% achieved those warming limits.

Guterres said the wholesale economic changes needed to keep the temperature from rising another degree or more may be painful, but there will be more pain if the world fails.

“If you don’t hang on to that goal, what you’ll achieve is a total disaster,” the secretary-general said in his 38th floor conference room.

If countries only do what they promised in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, it would be catastrophic because the world would warm by another 4.5 degrees (2.5 degrees Celsius), Guterres said, adding “that is why we need to dramatically accelerate… what everybody knows needs to be done.”

Yet, globally the trends are going the other way. University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck said it looks unlikely that the world could prevent another 1.8 degrees (1 Celsius) of warming, let alone 0.9 degrees.

And in an odd way that gives the U.N. chief optimism.

Because as disasters mount and deaths increase, the public, especially youths, will realize that warming is “a dramatic threat to the whole of humankind,” Guterres said.

So the worse it gets, the more people will demand change, he said.

That’s why he’s about to visit the islands of Fiji, Tuvalu and Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean, which he said is hit hardest by climate change.

Guterres said he wants to use the determination and moral authority of the people who live on the threatened islands to convince world leaders to make necessary change.

Here are some excerpts from the 25-minute interview with Guterres, who said he used to love steak houses but now only goes once every three months because livestock contribute significantly to warming. The questions and answers have been edited for clarity and length:

Q: How can you be optimistic?

A: That is the paradox. Things are getting worse. Temperatures are rising faster than expected. We see the Arctic melting. We see glaciers disappearing. We see corals bleaching. We see biodiversity being dramatically threatened. So things are getting worse and worse.But the political will has been slow.We need to reverse this trend. We need to make people understand that this is not sustainable. And the reason why I’m optimistic is that I feel that more and more people are convinced of that. And as more and more people are convinced of that, I believe governments will feel the need to increase their political will which at this present moment is still lagging behind.

You have seen the fantastic attitude of young girls and boys making a strike in favor of climate action. You see more and more business and communities assuming responsibilities.

Q: Can you fight climate change and biodiversity loss at the same time?

A: Climate change is a major threat to biodiversity. It’s because of climate change that species are disappearing. So we need at the same time to be concerned with the climate action… with our oceans… to make sure that we keep the richness of a planet that was created by God. And I don’t believe God would be very happy to see many of his creatures disappearing.”

Q: How do you see the United States and the Trump administration on climate?

A: In the United States I disagree with the policies that the government has implemented. But I see fantastic attitudes and fantastic developments in what is done by large businesses, by cities, by the civil society. I can see the United States a country with an enormous potential to achieve what needs to be achieved for us to be able to defeat climate change.
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Obesity worldwide is increasing more quickly in rural areas than in cities, a study reported Wednesday, challenging a long-held assumption that the global epidemic of excess weight is mainly an urban problem.

Data covering 200 countries and territories compiled by more than 1,000 researchers showed an average gain of roughly five to six kilos per woman and man living in the countryside from 1985 to 2017.

City-dwelling women and men, however, put on 38 and 24 percent less, respectively, than their rural counterparts over the same period, according to the findings, published in Nature.

“The results of this massive global study overturn commonly held perceptions that more people living in cities is the main cause of the global rise in obesity,” said senior author Majid Ezzati, a professor at Imperial College London’s School of Public Health.

“This means that we need to rethink how we tackle this global health problem.”

The main exception to the trend was sub-Saharan Africa, where women gained weight more rapidly in cities.

Obesity has emerged as a global health epidemic, driving rising rates of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and a host of cancers.

The annual cost of treating related health impacts could top a trillion dollars by 2025, the World Obesity Federation estimated in 2017.

To date, most national and international policies to curb excess body weight have focused on cities, including public messaging, the redesign of urban spaces to encourage walking, and subsidized sports facilities.

Body-mass index

To factor health status into the comparison across nations, the researchers used a standard measure known as the “body-mass index”, or BMI, based on height and weight.

A person with a BMI of 25 or more is considered overweight, while 30 or higher is obese. A healthy BMI ranges from 18.5 to 24.9.

Approximately two billion adults in the world are overweight, nearly a third of them obese. The number of obese people has tripled since 1975.

The study revealed important differences between countries depending on income level.

In high-income nations, for example, the study found that rural BMI were generally already higher in 1985, especially for women.

Lower income and education levels, the high cost and limited availability of healthy foods, dependence on vehicles, the phasing out of manual labour — all of these factors likely contributed to progressive weight gain.

Conversely, urban areas “provide a wealth of opportunities for better nutrition, more physical exercise and recreation, and overall improved health,” Ezzati said.

Around 55 percent of the world’s population live in cities or satellite communities, with that figure set to rise to 68 percent by mid-century, according to the United Nations.

‘Ultra-processed foods’

The most urbanized regions in the world are North America (82 percent), Latin America and the Caribbean (81 percent) and Europe (74 percent).

More recently, the proportion of overweight and obese adults in the rural parts of many low- and middle-income countries is also rising more quickly than in cites.

“Rural areas in these countries have begun to resemble urban areas,” Barry Popkin, an expert on global public health at the University of North Carolina, said in a comment, also in Nature.

“Modern food supply is now available in combination with cheap mechanized devices for farming and transport,” he added. “Ultra-processed foods are also becoming part of the diets of poor people.”

At a country level, several findings stand out.

Some of the largest BMI increases from 1985 to 2017 among men were in China, the United States, Bahrain, Peru and the Dominican Republic, adding an average of 8-9 kilos per adult.

Women in Egypt and Honduras added — on average, across urban and rural areas — even more.

Rural women in Bangladesh, and men living in rural Ethiopia, had the lowest average BMI in 1985, at 17.7 and 18.4 respectively, just under the threshold of healthy weight. Both cohorts were well above that threshold by 2017.

The populations — both men and women — in small South Pacific island nations have among the highest BMI levels in the world, often well above 30.

“The NDC Risk Factor Collaboration challenges us to create programmes and policies that are rurally focused to prevent weight gain”, Popkin said.
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