China on Sunday launched a rocket carrying three astronauts on a mission to complete construction on its new space station, the latest milestone in Beijing’s drive to become a major space power.

The trio blasted off in a Long March-2F rocket at (0244 GMT) from the Jiuquan launch center in northwestern China’s Gobi desert, said state broadcaster CCTV, with the team to spend six months expanding the Tiangong space station.

Tiangong, which means “heavenly palace,” is expected to become fully operational by the end of the year.

China’s heavily promoted space program has already seen the nation land a rover on Mars and send probes to the moon.

The Shenzhou-14 crew is tasked with “completing in-orbit assembly and construction of the space station,” as well as “commissioning of equipment” and conducting scientific experiments, state-run CGTN said Saturday.

Led by air force pilot Chen Dong, 43, the three-person crew’s main challenge will be connecting the station’s two lab modules to the main body.

Dong, along with fellow pilots Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe, will become the second crew to spend six months aboard the Tiangong after the last returned to Earth in April following 183 days on the space station.

Tiangong’s core module entered orbit earlier last year and is expected to operate for at least a decade.

The completed station will be similar to the Soviet Mir station that orbited Earth from the 1980s until 2001.

Space ambitions

The world’s second-largest economy has poured billions into its military-run space program, with hopes of having a permanently crewed space station by 2022 and eventually sending humans to the moon.

The country has made large strides in catching up with the United States and Russia, whose astronauts and cosmonauts have decades of experience in space exploration.

But under Chinese President Xi Jinping, the country’s plans for its heavily promoted “space dream” have been put into overdrive.

In addition to a space station, Beijing is also planning to build a base on the moon, and the country’s National Space Administration said it aims to launch a crewed lunar mission by 2029.

China has been excluded from the International Space Station since 2011, when the United States banned NASA from engaging with the country.

While China does not plan to use its space station for global cooperation on the scale of the ISS, Beijing has said it is open to foreign collaboration.

The ISS is due for retirement after 2024, although NASA has said it could remain functional until 2030. 
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Global reported cases of COVID-19 cases and deaths “are near their lowest levels since the beginning of the pandemic,” the World Health Organization director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said Friday.

Speaking at the GLOBSEC Bratislava Forum, Tedros warned, however, that “It is still far too early to say the pandemic is over. … Increasing transmission, plus decreasing testing and sequencing, plus 1 billion people still unvaccinated, equals a dangerous situation.”

“There remains a real and present danger, the WHO chief said, “of a new and more virulent variant emerging that evades our vaccines.”

Meanwhile, India’s health ministry reported a slight dip in COVID-19 cases Saturday, with 3,962 new cases.  On Friday, however, the daily count crossed 4,000 for the first time in about three months.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center has recorded more than 43 million COVID cases in India with over 500,000 deaths.

The global COVID infection toll is more than 531 million with 6.3 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. The center reported a total of 11.66 billion vaccines administered. 
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The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has shot past a key milestone — more than 50% higher than pre-industrial times — and is at levels not seen since millions of years ago when Earth was a hothouse ocean-inundated planet, federal scientists announced Friday. 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said its longtime monitoring station at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, averaged 421 parts per million of carbon dioxide for the month of May, which is when the crucial greenhouse gas hits its yearly high.

Before the industrial revolution in the late 19th century, carbon dioxide levels were at 280 parts per million, scientists said, so humans have significantly changed the atmosphere. Some activists and scientists want a level of no more than 350 parts per million.

Industrial carbon dioxide emissions come from the burning of coal, oil and gas. This year’s carbon dioxide level is nearly 1.9 ppm more than a year ago, a slightly bigger jump than from May 2020 to May 2021. 

“The world is trying to reduce emissions, and you just don’t see it. In other words, if you’re measuring the atmosphere, you’re not seeing anything happening right now in terms of change,” said NOAA climate scientist Pieter Tans, who tracks global greenhouse gas emissions for the agency. 

Outside scientists said the numbers show a severe climate change problem. 

More heat waves, floods, storms

University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles said without cuts in carbon pollution “we will see ever more damaging levels of climate change, more heat waves, more flooding, more droughts, more large storms and higher sea levels.” 

The slowdown from the pandemic did cut global carbon emissions a bit in 2020, but they rebounded last year. Both changes were small compared with how much carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere each year, especially considering that carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere as long as a thousand years, Tans said. 

The world puts about 10 billion metric tons of carbon in the air each year. Much of it gets drawn down by oceans and plants. That’s why May is the peak for global carbon dioxide emissions. Plants in the Northern Hemisphere start sucking up more carbon dioxide in the summer as they grow.

NOAA said carbon dioxide levels are now about the same as 4.1 million to 4.5 million years ago in the Pliocene Era, when temperatures were 3.9 degrees Celsius hotter and sea levels were 5 to 25 meters higher than now. South Florida, for example, was completely under water. These are conditions that human civilization has never known. 

The reason it was much warmer and seas were higher millions of years ago at the same carbon dioxide level as now is that in the past the natural increase in carbon dioxide levels was far more gradual. With carbon sticking in the air hundreds of years, temperatures heated up over longer periods of time and stayed there. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melted over time, raising sea levels tremendously and making Earth darker and reflecting less heat off the planet, Tans and other scientists said. 

Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography calculated levels a bit differently based on time and averaging. They put the May average at 420.8 ppm, slightly lower than NOAA’s figure.
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Friday it was aware of more than 700 cases of monkeypox globally, including 21 in the United States, with investigations now suggesting it is spreading inside the country. 

Sixteen of the first 17 cases were among people who identify as men who have sex with men, according to a new CDC report, and 14 were thought to be associated with travel. 

All patients are in recovery or have recovered, and no cases have been fatal. 

“There have also been some cases in the United States that we know are linked to known cases,” Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the CDC’s Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, told reporters on a call.  

“We also have at least one case in the United States that does not have a travel link or know how they acquired their infection.” 

Monkeypox is a rare disease that is related to but less severe than smallpox, causing a rash that spreads, fever, chills and aches, among other symptoms. 

Generally confined to western and central Africa, cases have been reported in Europe since May, and the number of countries affected has grown since. 

Canada also released new figures Friday, counting 77 confirmed cases — almost all of them detected in Quebec province, where vaccines have been delivered. 

Though its new spread may be linked to particular gay festivals in Europe, monkeypox is not thought to be a sexually transmitted disease, with the main risk factor being close skin-to-skin contact with someone who has monkeypox sores.  

A person is contagious until all the sores have scabbed and new skin is formed. 

‘More than enough vaccine’ 

Raj Panjabi, senior director for the White House’s global health security and biodefense division, added that 1,200 vaccines and 100 treatment courses had been delivered to U.S. states, where they were offered to close contacts of those infected. 

There are currently two authorized vaccines: ACAM2000 and JYNNEOS, which were originally developed against smallpox.  

Though smallpox has been eliminated, the United States retains the vaccines in a strategic national reserve in case it is deployed as a biological weapon.  

JYNNEOS is the more modern of the two vaccines, with fewer side effects. 

“We continue to have more than enough vaccine available,” Dawn O’Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response in the Department of Health and Human Services, told reporters.  

In late May, the CDC said it had 100 million doses of ACAM200 and 1,000 doses of JYNNEOS available, but O’Connell said Friday the figures had shifted, though she could not divulge precise numbers for strategic reasons. 

The CDC has also authorized two antivirals used to treat smallpox, TPOXX and Cidofovir, to be repurposed to treat monkeypox. 

“Anyone can get monkeypox, and we are carefully monitoring for monkeypox that may be spreading in any population, including those who are not identifying as men who have sex with men,” said McQuiston.  

That being said, the CDC is undertaking special outreach in the LGBT community, she added. 

A suspected case “should be anyone with a new characteristic rash,” or anyone who meets the criteria for high suspicion such as relevant travel, close contact, or being a man who has sex with men.  

 
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American children under age 5 could receive their first COVID-19 vaccines as early as June 21, the White House’s top COVID official said Thursday — if the two vaccines under review are approved by both U.S. government bodies responsible for such authorizations.

“We know that many, many parents are eager to vaccinate their youngest kids,” said White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha. “And it’s important to do this right. And that’s what this process has been all about.”

Starting Friday, he said, the federal government will make 10 million doses available for order by states, pharmacies, community health centers and federal entities. Once the Food and Drug Administration approves the vaccine, those doses can be shipped, and once the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gives its approval, children can start to get vaccinated. He predicted that if the process unfolds smoothly, children could begin receiving shots on June 21.

Currently, only children 5 or older are eligible for two-dose vaccines and for booster shots. If the vaccine is approved, the doses will be smaller than adult doses, Jha said, and the government has encouraged suppliers to make vaccinations available outside work and school hours, so parents can easily access them.

“We are prepared,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “We’re working with states, local health departments, pediatricians, family doctors, other health providers and pharmacies to get ready, as we did with kids that are between 5 and 11. So we want to make sure that we get this done swiftly but also safely and … follow CDC recommendations.”

Last month, during the Quad leaders summit in Tokyo, the U.S. committed to providing COVID-19 boosters and pediatric doses to countries in greatest need, including in the Indo-Pacific. But it’s not clear whether the administration has firm plans to donate the vaccines for young children at this point.

“One of the things that the Quad partners are committed to is making sure that doses are safe and effective, and not trying to do anything to try and prejudge the approval process,” a senior administration official told VOA.

Moderna asked for authorization for pediatric vaccines in late April; Pfizer asked last month. The most recent survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 18% of parents of under-5 children will get their children vaccinated quickly. But 38% say they will wait and observe how others take the vaccine. And another 38% say they will either “definitely not” pursue the vaccine or will do so only if required.

Johns Hopkins University, a leading tracker of the pandemic, notes that parental uptake of child vaccinations has been “stubbornly slow,” with less than 30% of children receiving the vaccine.

“The consistent message throughout the pandemic has been that the virus is mild for children,” said Rupali Limaye, deputy director of the International Vaccine Access Center.

The CDC emphasizes that the child-sized vaccine is safe and effective.

While severe cases among children are less prevalent than among adults, the CDC notes that since the pandemic began, COVID-19 has taken the lives of 479 American children under age 5.

Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
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One of NASA’s robots on Mars chops its way through the record books. Plus, next-generation spacesuits, and a meteor shower ignites the sky over Brazil. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space
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U.S. President Joe Biden met with major manufacturers of infant formula on Wednesday, and suggested their ranks should grow, as his administration presses ahead with efforts to boost imported supplies to help ease a nationwide shortage. 

“We need more new entrants in the infant formula market,” Biden said during a virtual meeting with executives from ByHeart, Bubs Australia, Reckitt Benckiser Group, Perrigo Company and Nestles Gerber. 

Multiple global suppliers are seeking U.S. approval to ship critical baby formula as Biden’s administration accelerates what it has dubbed “Operation Fly Formula” to help fill store shelves and calm frustrated parents. 

With about $4 billion in annual sales, the U.S. baby formula market has historically been dominated by domestic producers, with imports limited and subject to high tariffs. 

But U.S. parents have struggled to find baby formula in recent months after a February recall of some formulas by one of the nation’s main manufacturers, Abbott Laboratories, coupled with pandemic-related supply chain issues. 

The latest administration effort to solve the problem includes an announcement on Wednesday that United Airlines has agreed to transport U.K.-made Kendamil formula free of charge from Heathrow Airport in London to multiple airports across the United States over a three-week period. 

This first shipment, which includes Kendamil Classic and Kendamil Organic formula, will be available at Target stores across the country in the coming weeks. 

The administration also secured two flights totaling 380,000 pounds of baby formula from Bubs Australia that will be delivered to California and Pennsylvania on June 9 and June 11, respectively. 

Biden said on Wednesday he first learned of the severity of the U.S. baby formula shortage in early April. The White House said it had been working around the clock since February to address the problem. 

U.S. lawmakers have criticized the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for not acting promptly to address the problems that caused the recall at Abbott’s Michigan plant, which is set to reopen June 4. 

The Biden administration has relaxed its import policy and invoked the Defense Production Act to help increase available U.S. supplies, which is still expected to take weeks. It has also said it could use federal resources to help transport supplies to retailers. 

Two million cans of formula have been sent from the U.K., and Australian manufacturers are also preparing to send in more product. 

Thorben Nilewski of Organic Family, which makes the popular Holle infant formulas, said in an email that the German company applied for the FDA’s temporary approval but has not yet received any feedback. 

Many U.S. parents rely on baby formula. Fewer than half the babies born in the United States were exclusively breast-fed through their first three months, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2020 Breastfeeding Report Card. 
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As health authorities in Europe and elsewhere roll out vaccines and drugs to stamp out the biggest monkeypox outbreak beyond Africa, some doctors acknowledge an ugly reality: The resources to slow the disease’s spread have long been available, just not to the Africans who have dealt with it for decades.

Countries including Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, the United States, Israel and Australia have reported more than 500 monkeypox cases, many apparently tied to sexual activity at two recent raves in Europe. No deaths have been reported.

Authorities in numerous European countries and the U.S. are offering to immunize people and considering the use of antivirals. On Thursday, the World Health Organization will convene a special meeting to discuss monkeypox research priorities and related issues.

Meanwhile, the African continent has reported about three times as many cases this year.

There have been more than 1,400 monkeypox cases and 63 deaths in four countries where the disease is endemic — Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo and Nigeria — according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So far, sequencing has not yet shown any direct link to the outbreak outside Africa, health officials say.

Monkeypox is in the same family of viruses as smallpox, and smallpox vaccines are estimated to be about 85% effective against monkeypox, according to WHO.

Since identifying cases earlier this month, Britain has vaccinated more than 1,000 people at risk of contracting the virus and bought 20,000 more doses. European Union officials are in talks to buy more smallpox vaccine from Bavarian Nordic, the maker of the only such vaccine licensed in Europe.

U.S. government officials have released about 700 doses of vaccine to states where cases were reported.

Such measures aren’t routinely employed in Africa.

Dr. Adesola Yinka-Ogunleye, who leads Nigeria’s monkeypox working group, said there are currently no vaccines or antivirals being used against monkeypox in her country. People suspected of having monkeypox are isolated and treated conservatively, while their contacts are monitored, she said.

Generally, Africa has only had “small stockpiles” of smallpox vaccine to offer health workers when monkeypox outbreaks happen, said Ahmed Ogwell, acting director of the Africa CDC.

Limited vaccine supply and competing health priorities have meant that immunization against monkeypox hasn’t been widely pursued in Africa, said Dr. Jimmy Whitworth, a professor of international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“It’s a bit uncomfortable that we have a different attitude to the kinds of resources we deploy depending on where cases are,” he said. “It exposes a moral failing when those interventions aren’t available for the millions of people in Africa who need them.”

WHO has 31 million doses of smallpox vaccines, mostly kept in donor countries and intended as a rapid response to any re-emergence of the disease, which was declared eradicated in 1980.

Doses from the U.N. health agency’s stockpile have never been released for any monkeypox outbreaks in central or western Africa.

Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO’s emergencies chief, said the agency was considering allowing rich countries to use the smallpox vaccines to try to limit the spread of monkeypox. WHO manages similar mechanisms to help poor countries get vaccines for diseases like yellow fever and meningitis, but such efforts have not been previously used for countries that can otherwise afford shots.

Oyewale Tomori, a Nigerian virologist who sits on several WHO advisory boards, said releasing smallpox vaccines from the agency’s stockpile to stop monkeypox from becoming endemic in richer countries might be warranted, but he noted a discrepancy in WHO’s strategy.

“A similar approach should have been adopted a long time ago to deal with the situation in Africa,” he said. “This is another example of where some countries are more equal than others.”

Some doctors pointed out that stalled efforts to understand monkeypox were now complicating efforts to treat patients. Most people experience symptoms including fever, chills and fatigue. But those with more serious disease often develop a rash on their face or hands that spreads elsewhere.

Dr. Hugh Adler and colleagues recently published a paper suggesting the antiviral drug tecovirimat could help fight monkeypox. The drug, approved in the U.S. to treat smallpox, was used in seven people infected with monkeypox in the U.K. from 2018 to 2021, but more details are needed for regulatory approval.

“If we had thought about getting this data before, we wouldn’t be in this situation now where we have a potential treatment without enough evidence,” said Adler, a research fellow at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

Many diseases only attracted significant money after infecting people from rich countries, he noted.

For example, it was only after the catastrophic Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-2016 — when several Americans were sickened by the disease among the more than 28,000 cases in Africa — that authorities finally sped up the research and protocols to license an Ebola vaccine, capping a decades-long effort.

At a press briefing on Wednesday, WHO’s Ryan said the agency was worried about the continued spread of monkeypox in rich countries and was evaluating how it could help stem the disease’s transmission there.

“I certainly didn’t hear that same level of concern over the last five or 10 years,” he said, referring to the repeated epidemics of monkeypox in Africa, when thousands of people in the continent’s central and western parts were sickened by the disease.

Jay Chudi, a development expert who lives in the Nigerian state of Enugu, which has reported monkeypox cases since 2017, hopes the increased attention might finally help address the problem. But he nevertheless lamented that it took infections in rich countries for it to seem possible.

“You would think the new cases are deadlier and more dangerous than what we have in Africa,” he said. “We are now seeing it can end once and for all, but because it is no longer just in Africa. It’s now everybody is worried.”
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The World Health Organization reported more than 250 attacks on health facilities and health personnel in Ukraine since it was invaded by Russian forces. One U.S. firm is helping fill the gap with mobile laboratories and clinics. For VOA, Genia Dulot has our story from Los Angeles.
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In the spring of 2020, as COVID-19 spread throughout the world in ways not fully understood, the United States faced a critical shortage of protective masks. 

Dozens of manufacturing startups attempted to meet the demand for what was then a confusing array of grades and types — N95, KN95, full-face respirators.  

Now, after a short respite from many COVID-19 precautions, the U.S. is weeks into a new surge in cases that may foreshadow a greater one this fall, and those same small companies that make masks are hurting.  

John Bielamowicz is a co-founder of United States Mask. The Fort Worth, Texas, company is among those struggling.  

Bielamowicz launched his mask-making mission after reading social media posts about medical professionals not having N95 masks in the pandemic’s terrifying early months. It was caregivers like them who had helped his family in 2016, when his son Matthew was born missing 80% of his diaphragm on the left side. 

Bielamowicz and his business partner ​David Baillargeon put their commercial real estate business on hold to start the mask company. 

“This was our way of paying it back … for the gift that they gave us for sending us home with our son,” Bielamowicz told VOA Mandarin in a virtual interview. “It was a debt that I never thought that I’d be able to pay back.” 

The partners began reading and experimenting in February 2020, and by late October of that year, their N95 masks carried a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health certification. At its peak in early 2021, the company produced millions of N95 masks a month and employed close to 50 people. 

“For me and my family, this was a mission, and we were going to do it or fail trying,” Bielamowicz said. “And we didn’t fail. We did it.”  

Masks and jobs

The American Mask Manufacturers Association (AMMA) represents small companies that started making masks during the pandemic.  

“During the pandemic, we created just over 8,000 new manufacturing jobs. And this was at a time where most businesses were laying people off or furloughing people,” Lloyd Armbrust, president of the association, told VOA in a virtual interview.  

But attitudes toward mask wearing have varied widely across the U.S. since 2020, and on April 18, a federal judge in Florida voided the national mask mandate covering airplanes and other public transportation. This came a day before the Biden administration said it would no longer enforce a U.S. mask mandate.  

Armbrust American, Armbrust’s mask company in Pflugerville, Texas, staggered from the twin blows.  

“That day, we saw our online sales be cut at half or even more,” said Armbrust, who added that he and other mask-makers had already been competing with cheap masks from China before the one-two punch.  

China and masks 

According to research published last year by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington-based think tank, 72% of the masks and respirators imported by the U.S. in 2019 came from China. 

When the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was first identified in humans in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, U.S. imports of protective masks from China plunged. 

When China resumed exporting government-subsidized masks in 2020, it attempted to create “a monopoly within the PPE (personal protective equipment) market,” the AMMA charged, and manufacturers such as Armbrust American found themselves in difficulty. 

“Our raw material costs me about $0.015 per mask,” Armbrust said. “And yet China can deliver it to the United States for less than $0.01. They say that they’re more efficient, but how is that possible when the cost of their finished products is cheaper than I buy the raw materials for? It’s just not possible. The answer is, the Chinese government is subsidizing it because they don’t want to lose this business.”  

In response to VOA Mandarin questions about China’s mask exports to the U.S., Liu Pengyu, the spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said, “I would like to point out that as a market economy, China has earnestly fulfilled its WTO (World Trade Organization) commitments and abides by multilateral economic and trade rules. Chinese merchandise is cheap and good because of the good supply chain, sufficient competition and economies of scale, not non-market behavior.” 

“I can be very competitive, but I can’t be competitive against the whole government. … In 2021, we laid off about 70% of our staff,” Armbrust said. 

Bielamowicz’s United States Mask laid off people as well. 

“It was the worst day of my career,” he said.   

An uncertain future 

Nationwide, the AMMA, which peaked with almost 30 members in 2021, now includes fewer than 10 enterprises still producing masks. 

Facing masks’ uncertain future, Armbrust American shifted to producing home air filters. 

Bielamowicz has been traveling to Washington to lobby the federal government. 

“We’re asking for free competition,” Bielamowicz said. “We know the free market works.” 

That said, Armbrust hopes the government can subsidize small companies that make masks, as it does farmers, to preserve production capability so that when the next pandemic hits, small producers can jump back into mask making. 

“If I could just have a base,” Armbrust said, “… where I could mothball these machines and … I could afford to pay the rent for the space instead of actually shutting it down and scrapping the machines, that would be another solution.”  
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The storm that came ashore in southwestern Mexico as Hurricane Agatha is expected to dissipate late Tuesday, but after dropping more heavy rains over the region.

Oaxaca Governor Alejandro Murat urged people to remain cautious Tuesday with the ongoing threat of rain, but he said there were no reports of any deaths from the storm.

Agatha made landfall Monday near the Oaxaca town of Puerto Angel, bringing flooding rains and strong winds, and triggering several mudslides.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm, which was rated a Category Two hurricane, was the strongest to make a May landfall on Mexico’s Pacific coast since record keeping began in 1949.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters
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Indigenous Australia’s approach to seasons, based on tens of thousands of years of experience, is explored in a new three-part documentary series. From Sydney, Phil Mercer reports
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The World Health Organization’s governing board agreed on Monday to form a new committee to help speed up its response to health emergencies like COVID-19. 

The U.N. Health Agency faced criticism for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the pace of its response to early cases that may have delayed detection and helped the virus to spread. Some disease experts say that governments and WHO must avoid repeating such early missteps with other outbreaks like monkeypox. Read full story. 

The resolution, passed unanimously at the 34-member Executive Board’s annual meeting, will form a new Standing Committee on Health Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response to help address some of the perceived shortcomings.   

Formal WHO meetings are sometimes spaced months apart, and under the new initiative, the new body would meet immediately after the director-general declares a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) — a decision that triggers calls for extra funding, public health measures and a series of recommendations aimed at controlling disease spread. 

“This was probably one of the weakest points during the last pandemic that member states or governing bodies didn’t have the opportunity to have immediate consultations after this PHEIC of the last pandemic was declared,” Austria’s Clemens Martin Auer, who proposed the resolution, told the Executive Board.   

He added that the new committee would also conduct oversight of WHO’s health emergencies program in ordinary times to ensure it is fit to respond. 

“I think the standing committee will be an indispensable part of the new global architecture on health emergency,” he added.  

The United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Japan were among the co-sponsors of the initiative. 
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In Ghana, sexual assault victims must show medical reports to prove they have been assaulted before a rape suspect can be prosecuted. These medical examinations come at a relatively high cost, and are not covered by the national health insurance, and so can deter a victim from pressing charges. Now, a lawmaker is seeking to abolish the health exam requirement so that more women are able to pursue justice. Senanu Tord reports from Battor, Ghana.
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The World Health Organization’s top monkeypox expert said she doesn’t expect the hundreds of cases reported to date to turn into another pandemic, but acknowledged there are still many unknowns about the disease, including how exactly it’s spreading and whether the suspension of mass smallpox immunization decades ago may somehow be speeding its transmission.

In a public session on Monday, WHO’s Dr. Rosamund Lewis said it was critical to emphasize that the vast majority of cases being seen in dozens of countries globally are in gay, bisexual or men who have sex with men, so that scientists can further study the issue and for populations at risk to take precautions.

“It’s very important to describe this because it appears to be an increase in a mode of transmission that may have been under-recognized in the past,” said Lewis, WHO’s technical lead on monkeypox.

Still, she warned that anyone is at potential risk of the disease, regardless of their sexual orientation. Other experts have pointed out that it may be accidental that the disease was first picked up in gay and bisexual men, saying it could quickly spill over into other groups if it is not curbed. To date, WHO said 23 countries that haven’t previously had monkeypox have reported more than 250 cases.

Lewis said it’s unknown whether monkeypox is being transmitted by sex or just the close contact between people engaging in sexual activity and described the threat to the general population as “low.”

“It is not yet known whether this virus is exploiting a new mode of transmission, but what is clear is that it continues to exploit its well-known mode of transmission, which is close, physical contact,” Lewis said. Monkeypox is known to spread when there is close physical contact with an infected person or their clothing or bedsheets.

She also warned that among the current cases, there is a higher proportion of people with fewer lesions that are more concentrated in the genital region and sometimes nearly impossible to see.

“You may have these lesions for two to four weeks (and) they may not be visible to others, but you may still be infectious,” she said.

Last week, a top adviser to WHO said the outbreak in Europe, U.S., Israel, Australia and beyond was likely linked to sex at two recent raves in Spain and Belgium. That marks a significant departure from the disease’s typical pattern of spread in central and western Africa, where people are mainly infected by animals like wild rodents and primates, and epidemics haven’t spilled across borders.

Most monkeypox patients experience only fever, body aches, chills and fatigue. People with more serious illness may develop a rash and lesions on the face and hands that can spread to other parts of the body. No deaths have been reported in the current outbreak. 

WHO’s Lewis also said that while previous cases of monkeypox in central and western Africa have been relatively contained, it was not clear if people could spread monkeypox without symptoms or if the disease might be airborne, like measles or COVID-19.

Monkeypox is related to smallpox, but has milder symptoms. After smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980, countries suspended their mass immunization programs, a move that some experts believe may be helping monkeypox spread, since there is now little widespread immunity to related diseases; smallpox vaccines are also protective against monkeypox.

Lewis said it would be “unfortunate” if monkeypox were able to “exploit the immunity gap” left by smallpox 40 years ago, saying that there was still a window of opportunity to close down the outbreak so that monkeypox would not become entrenched in new regions.
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Methamphetamine seizures across East and Southeast Asia hit yet another record high in 2021, proof of the “staggering” scale and reach the region’s drug gangs have gained after a decade of steady growth that looks set to continue, the United Nations says in a new report.

In Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia: Latest Development and Challenges, issued Monday in Bangkok, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime says seizures of meth tablets topped 1 billion for the first time last year. While crystal meth, or ice, seizures dipped slightly to 79 metric tons, it says, total meth seizures by weight were a record 171.5 metric tons in 2021, nearly eight times the total seizures a decade ago.

Combined with stable or falling street and wholesale prices across the region, the UNODC says the spiraling drug hauls are evidence of soaring production more than stepped-up law enforcement.

“It is fair to say the region is struggling badly to address meth, and frankly to deal with other synthetic drugs as well,” Jeremy Douglas, the UNODC’s representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, told VOA.

“There needs to be a radical policy shift and rebalancing if the region wants to get to a point of managing the meth problem or making some headway,” he added.

Border battle

With fewer and fewer busts of meth labs across the region, the UNODC says production continues to concentrate in the notorious Golden Triangle, a rugged and remote domain of warlords, drug gangs and gunrunners where the corners of eastern Myanmar, western Laos and northern Thailand meet.

Within that triangle, it says meth production is concentrating further still in eastern Myanmar, where militias backed by the country’s brutal military and rebel armies set against it vie for territory — and a cut of the drug trade.

Most of the meth made there continues to pour into northern Thailand, from where it cascades across the rest of the country, Southeast Asia and as far away as Australia and Japan.

However, beefed-up security by Thai police along the country’s northern border has been pushing a growing share of the traffic through Laos instead. From there, drug gangs can bypass the north of Thailand and push their product into the country across its less-guarded border in the northeast Isaan region, most of which tracks the Mekong River.

 

Of all the ice and meth tablets interdicted in Thailand’s top 10 provinces for seizures last year, northeast provinces accounted for 49% and 39%, respectively.

 

Lt. Gen. Pornchai Charoenwong, an assistant to the Thai police force’s narcotics suppression division, confirmed the trend.

 

“We can point to a couple of factors,” he told VOA. “First is the increased suppression by the government, police and the military in the northern region. With that increased suppression, we’ve seen a change in trafficking routes from the northern part of Thailand to the Isaan region along the Mekong River.”

 

He said COVID-driven border controls have played a part as well.

 

To help Thai authorities plug the gaps, the U.S. State Department’s International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Office has donated some $670,000 worth of equipment to local police in the northeast this year.

 

Mark Snyder, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s acting head of mission in Thailand, said that represents an increase in U.S. crime-fighting aid to that part of the country, reflecting its growing role in the region’s drug trade.

 

“Thai law enforcement has been doing a lot of work on the northern border,” he said, and “when you have increased law enforcement presence in one area, the criminal organizations will adapt to that.”

 

He declined to say what the equipment consists of. Pornchai said the U.S. donations typically include vehicles, communications gear and drones.

 

From Thailand, much of the meth flows south to, and through, Malaysia, which the UNODC report highlights as an increasingly important springboard to the rest of Southeast Asia and beyond for Golden Triangle drug gangs.

 

Laos, Thailand and Malaysia all saw record seizures of meth tablets in 2021.

 

Growth potential

 

The UNODC says the trade is also getting harder to stop, for a few reasons.

 

Most producers “brand” their packages with distinct codes that help the gangs keep track of them down the line. Variations on “999” and “Y1” are the most common, for reasons that are not entirely clear. Last year, though, the share of meth seized from a host of smaller producers using other codes shot up from 2.8% to 13%.

 

Douglas said the “unprecedented” surge in smaller producers, who buy meth powder from larger groups but press the tablets themselves, is likely adding to the overall rise in supply. He said more producers also means more trafficking networks, which means more players for the authorities to try and uncover, infiltrate and stop.

 

Blocking the flow of the chemicals the larger groups use to make their meth is getting tougher too, the U.N. agency says.

 

Seizures of the most common meth precursors, burdened by import and export controls that force drug gangs to get their hands on much of what they need on the black market, have crashed across Southeast Asia in recent years. The UNODC suspects that means the groups have switched to making those precursors themselves from other chemicals, or pre-precursors, that are not controlled.

 

The new report says authorities in the region seized a number of these other chemicals last year and into 2022 either at or on the way to suspected lab sites.

 

Douglas said pre-precursors “make an already complex situation more difficult.”

 

The U.N. and others are working with local authorities to highlight the problem and help them share intelligence on where and when those chemicals are moving, he added, while talks at the global level on controlling their shipment are also underway.

 

The report also notes the spread of meth from Myanmar westward into northern India, Middle Eastern drug gangs now using Malaysia as a steppingstone for amphetamine shipments, and illicit ketamine producers setting up shop in Cambodia.

 

Douglas said Southeast Asia’s drug gangs “have all the ingredients in place that they need to continue to grow,” and will do so unless local authorities themselves adapt.

 

“The scale and reach of the methamphetamine and synthetic drug trade in East and Southeast Asia is staggering,” he said, “and yet it can continue to expand if the region does not change approach and address the root causes that have allowed it to get to this point, including governance in the Golden Triangle and market demand.”
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Shanghai said on Sunday “unreasonable” curbs on businesses will be removed from June 1 as it looks to lift its COVID-19 lockdown, while Beijing reopened parts of its public transport as well as some malls and other venues as infections stabilized.

The Chinese commercial hub of 25 million people aims to essentially end from Wednesday a two-month lockdown that has severely damaged the economy and seen many residents lose income, struggle to source food and to cope with the isolation.

The painful coronavirus curbs in major Chinese cities run counter to trends seen in the rest of the world, which has largely tried to return to normal life even as infections spread.

Shanghai, China’s most populous city, will end many conditions for businesses to resume work from June 1. The city also launched measures to support its economy, including reducing some taxes on car purchases, accelerating issuance of local government bonds, and speeding up approvals of real estate projects.

Shanghai will ask banks to renew loans to small and medium firms worth a total of $15 billion this year.

“We will fully support and organize the resumption of work and production of enterprises in various industries and fields,” vice mayor Wu Qing told reporters, adding that “unreasonable” COVID restrictions on businesses would be lifted.

Wu did not give details of which restrictions would be cancelled.

Shanghai in April started publishing “white lists” of important manufacturers in the auto industry, life sciences, chemicals and semiconductors allowed to resume operations.

But many of the priority companies had suppliers who were unable to reopen and so they still faced logistical bottlenecks.

Many industry executives also complained about onerous COVID curbs, as they needed to find sleeping quarters for staff trying to isolate and to implement rigorous disinfection. Most businesses in the city are still shut.

All “white lists” would be abolished, Wu said.

Earlier on Sunday, city government spokeswoman Yin Xin said Shanghai would ease testing requirements from Wednesday for people who want to enter public areas, to encourage a return to work.

“The current epidemic situation in the city continues to stabilize and improve,” Yin said, adding Shanghai’s strategy was “pivoting towards normalized prevention and control.”

People entering public venues or taking public transport would need to show a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours, up from 48 hours previously.

Bus services within the Pudong New Area, home to Shanghai’s largest airport and the main financial district, would fully resume by Monday, officials said.

Plaza 66, a mall in central Shanghai that hosts Louis Vuitton and other luxury brands, reopened on Sunday.

Authorities have been slowly relaxing curbs, with a focus on getting manufacturing going again.

More people have been allowed to leave their homes and more businesses can reopen, though many residents remain largely confined to housing compounds, and most shops are only open for delivery service.

Private cars are not allowed out without approval, and most of the city’s public transport is shut. Authorities have yet to announced detailed plans for how the lockdown will be lifted. 

Gyms and libraries

In the capital Beijing, libraries, museums, theatres and gyms were allowed to reopen on Sunday, though with limits on numbers of people, in districts that have seen no community COVID-19 cases for seven consecutive days.

The districts of Fangshan and Shunyi will end work-from-home rules, while public transport will largely resume in the two districts as well as in Chaoyang, the city’s largest. Still, restaurant dining is banned throughout the city.

Shanghai reported just over 100 new COVID cases on Sunday, while Beijing recorded 21, both in line with a falling trend nationwide.

China’s economy has shown signs of recovery this month following an April slump but activity is weaker than last year and many analysts expect a second-quarter contraction. 

The strength and sustainability of any recovery will depend largely on COVID, with the highly transmissible Omicron variant proving hard to wipe out, and prone to comebacks. 

Investors have worried about the lack of a roadmap for exiting the zero-COVID strategy of ending all outbreaks at just about any cost, a signature policy of President Xi Jinping. He is expected to secure an unprecedented third leadership term at a congress of the ruling Communist Party in the autumn.

Markets expect more support for the economy.

“We expect policies to ease further on the fiscal front to boost demand, given downward pressures on growth and the uncertainty of the recovery pace,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a Friday note.

 
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Capri Isidoro broke down in tears in the office of a lactation consultant. 

The mother of two had been struggling to breastfeed her 1-month-old daughter ever since she was born, when the hospital gave the baby formula first without consulting her on her desire to breastfeed. 

Now, with massive safety recall and supply disruptions causing formula shortages across the United States, she also can’t find the specific formula that helps with her baby’s gas pains. 

“It is so sad. It shouldn’t be like this,” said Isidoro, who lives in the Baltimore suburb of Ellicott City. “We need formula for our kid, and where is this formula going to come from?” 

As parents across the United States struggle to find formula to feed their children, the pain is particularly acute among Black and Hispanic women. Black women have historically faced obstacles to breastfeeding, including a lack of lactation support in the hospital, more pressure to formula feed and cultural roadblocks. It’s one of many inequalities for Black mothers : They are far more likely to die from pregnancy complications, and less likely to have their concerns about pain taken seriously by doctors. 

Low-income families buy the majority of formula in the U.S., and face a particular struggle: Experts fear small neighborhood grocery stores that serve these vulnerable populations are not replenishing as much as larger retail stores, leaving some of these families without the resources or means to hunt for formula. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 20% of Black women and 23% of Hispanic women exclusively breastfeed through six months, compared to 29% of white women. The overall rate stands at 26%. Hospitals that encourage breastfeeding and overall lactation support are less prevalent in Black neighborhoods, according to the CDC. 

The Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses also says Hispanic and Black women classified as low-wage workers have less access to lactation support in their workplaces. 

The racial disparities reach far back in America’s history. The demands of slave labor prevented mothers from nursing their children, and slave owners separated mothers from their own babies to have them serve as wet nurses, breastfeeding other women’s children. 

In the 1950s, racially targeted commercials falsely advertised formula as a superior source of nutrition for infants. And studies continue to show that the babies of Black mothers are more likely to be introduced to formula in the hospital than the babies of white mothers, which happened to Isidoro after her emergency cesarean section. 

Physicians say introducing formula means the baby will require fewer feedings from the mother, decreasing the milk supply as the breast is not stimulated enough to produce. 

Andrea Freeman, author of the book “Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race and Injustice,” said these mothers still aren’t getting the support they need when it comes to having the choice of whether to breastfeed or use formula. They also may have jobs that do not accommodate the time and space needed for breastfeeding or pumping milk, Freeman said. 

“Nobody’s taking responsibility for the fact that they’ve steered families of color toward formula for so many years and made people rely on it and taken away choice. And then when it falls apart, there’s not really any recognition or accountability,” Freeman said. 

Breastfeeding practices are often influenced by previous generations, with some studies suggesting better outcomes for mothers who were breastfed when they were babies. 

Kate Bauer, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, said she began hearing back in February about Black and Latino families in Detroit and Grand Rapids feeling stuck after finding smaller grocery stores running out of formula. 

Some were told to go to the local office of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, better known as WIC, the federal program that supports low-income expectant and new mothers. Between 50% and 65% of the formula in the U.S. is bought through the program. 

“Going to the WIC office is like a full day’s errand for some moms,” Bauer said. 

She fears mothers are getting desperate enough to try foods that are not recommended for babies under 6 months. 

Yury Navas, a Salvadoran immigrant who works at a restaurant and lives in Laurel, Maryland, says she was not able to produce enough breast milk and struggled to find the right formula for her nearly 3-month-old baby Jose Ismael, after others caused vomiting, diarrhea and discomfort. 

One time, they drove half an hour to a store where workers told them they had the type she needed, but it was gone when they got there. Her husband goes out every night to search pharmacies around midnight. 

“It’s so hard to find this type,” she said, adding they sometimes have run out before they can secure more formula. “The baby will cry and cry, so we give him rice water.” 

On a recent day, she was down to her last container and called an advocacy group that had told her it would try to get her some at an appointment in five days. But the group could not guarantee anything. 

Some mothers have turned to social media and even befriended other locals to cast a wider net during shopping trips. 

In Miami, Denise Castro, who owns a construction company, started a virtual group to support new moms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now it’s helping moms get the formula they need as they go back to work. One of them is a Hispanic teacher whose job leaves her with little flexibility to care for her 2-month-old infant, who has been sensitive to a lot of formula brands. 

“Most of the moms we have been helping are Black and Latinas,” Castro said. “These moms really don’t have the time to visit three to four places in their lunch hour.” 

Lisette Fernandez, a 34-year-old Cuban American first-time mother of twins, has relied on friends and family to find the liquid 2-ounce bottles she needs for her boy and girl. Earlier this week, her father went to four different pharmacies before he was able to get her some boxes with the tiny bottles. They run out quickly as the babies grow. 

Fernandez said she wasn’t able to initiate breastfeeding, trying with an electric pump but saying she produced very little. Her mother, who arrived in Miami from Cuba as a 7-year-old girl, had chosen not to breastfeed her children, saying she did not want to, and taken medication to suppress lactation. 

Some studies have attributed changes in breastfeeding behavior among Hispanics to assimilation, saying Latina immigrants perceive formula feeding as an American practice. 

“Over the last three to six weeks it has been insane,” Fernandez said. “I am used to everything that COVID has brought. But worrying about my children not having milk? I did not see that coming.” 

 
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Something weird is up with La Nina, the natural but potent weather event linked to more drought and wildfires in the western United States and more Atlantic hurricanes. It’s becoming the nation’s unwanted weather guest and meteorologists said the U.S. Western states megadrought won’t go away until La Nina does.

The current double-dip La Nina set a record for strength last month and is forecast to likely be around for a rare but not quite unprecedented third straight winter. And it’s not just this one. Scientists are noticing that in the past 25 years the world seems to be getting more La Ninas than it used to and that is just the opposite of what their best computer model simulations say should be happening with human-caused climate change.

“They (La Ninas) don’t know when to leave,” said Michelle L’Heureux, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast office for La Nina and its more famous flip side, El Nino.

An Associated Press statistical analysis of winter La Ninas show that they used to happen about 28% of the time from 1950 to 1999, but in the past 25 winters, they’ve been brewing nearly half the time. There’s a small chance that this effect could be random, but if the La Nina sticks around this winter, as forecast, that would push the trend over the statistically significant line, which is key in science, said L’Heureux. Her own analysis shows that La Nina-like conditions are occurring more often in the last 40 years. Other new studies are showing similar patterns.

What’s bothering many scientists is that their go-to climate simulation models that tend to get conditions right over the rest of the globe predict more El Ninos, not La Ninas, and that’s causing contention in the climate community about what to believe, according to Columbia University climate scientist Richard Seager and MIT hurricane scientist Kerry Emanuel.

What Seager and other scientists said is happening is that the eastern equatorial Atlantic is not warming as fast as the western equatorial Atlantic or even the rest of the world with climate change. And it’s not the amount of warming that matters but the difference between the west and east. The more the difference, the more likely a La Nina, the less the difference, the more likely an El Nino. Scientists speculate it could be related to another natural cycle, called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or it could be caused by human-caused climate change or both.

“At this point we just don’t know,” L’Heureux said. “Scientists are watching and I know, are actively studying. But it’s really important because of regional conditions. We need to get this right.”

La Nina is a natural and cyclical cooling of parts of the equatorial Pacific that changes weather patterns worldwide, as opposed to El Nino’s warming. Often leading to more Atlantic hurricanes, less rain and more wildfires in the West and agricultural losses in the middle of the country, studies have shown La Nina is more expensive to the United States than the El Nino. Together El Nino, La Nina and the neutral condition are called ENSO, which stands for El Nino Southern Oscillation, and they have one of the largest natural effects on climate, at times augmenting and other times dampening the big effects of human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas, scientists said.

“They really have a very, very strong” effect, said research scientist Azhar Ehsan, who heads Columbia University’s El Nino/La Nina forecasting. “So a third consecutive La Nina is not at all a welcome thing.”

He said the dangerous heat in India and Pakistan this month and in April is connected to La Nina.

The current La Nina formed in the late summer of 2020 when the Atlantic set a record for the number of named storms. It strengthened in the winter when the U.S. western states drought worsened and in the early summer of 2021 it weakened enough that NOAA said conditions were neutral. But that pause only lasted a few months and by early fall 2021 La Nina was back, making it a double dip.

Normally second years of La Nina tend to be weaker, but in April this La Nina surprised meteorologists by setting a record for intensity in April, which is based on sea surface temperatures, Ehsan said.

“These are very impressive values for April,” L’Heureux said. Still, because La Ninas historically weaken over summer and there are slight signs that this one may be easing a bit, there’s the small but increasing chance that this La Nina could warm just enough to be considered neutral in late summer.

La Nina has its biggest effect in the winter and that’s when it is a problem for the West because it’s the rainy season that is supposed to recharge area reservoirs. But the western states are in a 22-year megadrought, about the same time period of increasing La Nina frequency.

Three factors — ENSO, climate change and randomness — are biggest when it comes to the drought, which is itself a huge trigger for massive wildfires, said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain. Without climate change, La Nina and bad luck could have made the drought the worst in 300 years but with climate change it’s the worst in at least 1,200 years, said UCLA climate hydrologist Park Williams.

La Nina “is a pretty important player; it may be the dominant player,” said Swain, who has a blog on western weather. “It could be responsible for one-third, maybe one-half of the given conditions if it is pronounced enough.”

“It’s much less likely that the Southwest (U.S.) will see at least even a partial recovery from the megadrought during La Nina,” Swain said.

La Nina “amps up your Atlantic storms” but decreases them in the Pacific, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

It’s all about winds 10 to 12 kilometers above the water surface. One of the key factors in storm development is whether there is wind shear, which are changes in wind from high to low elevations. Wind shear can decapitate or tip over hurricanes, making them hard to strengthen and at times even stick around. Wind shear can also let dry air into hurricanes that chokes them.

When there’s an El Nino, there’s lots of Atlantic wind shear and it’s hard for hurricanes to get going. But La Nina means little wind shear in the Atlantic, making it easier for storms to intensify and do it quickly, said University of Albany hurricane researcher Kristen Corbosiero.

“That’s a really huge factor,” Corbosiero said.

“Whatever is the cause, the increasing incidence of La Ninas may be behind the increasing hurricanes,” MIT’s Emanuel said.

Some areas like eastern Australia and the arid Sahel region of Africa do better with more rain during La Nina. India and Pakistan, even though they get extra spring heat, also receive more needed rain in La Ninas, Columbia’s Ehsan said.

A 1999 economic study found that drought from La Nina cost United States agriculture between $2.2 billion to $6.5 billion, which is far more than the $1.5 billion cost of El Nino. A neutral ENSO is best for agriculture.

Columbia’s Seager said even though there may be some chance and some natural cycles behind the changes in La Nina, because there’s likely a climate change factor he thinks there will probably be more of them.
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The World Health Organization says nearly 200 cases of monkeypox have been reported in more than 20 countries not usually known to have outbreaks of the unusual disease but described the epidemic as “containable” and proposed creating a stockpile to equitably share the limited vaccines and drugs available worldwide.

During a public briefing on Friday, the U.N. health agency said there are still many unanswered questions about what triggered the unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox outside of Africa, but there is no evidence that any genetic changes in the virus are responsible.

“The first sequencing of the virus shows that the strain is not different from the strains we can find in endemic countries and (this outbreak) is probably due more to a change in human behavior,” said Dr. Sylvie Briand, WHO’s director of pandemic and epidemic diseases.

Earlier this week, a top adviser to WHO said the outbreak in Europe, U.S., Israel, Australia and beyond was likely linked to sex at two recent raves in Spain and Belgium. That marks a significant departure from the disease’s typical pattern of spread in central and western Africa, where people are mainly infected by animals like wild rodents and primates, and outbreaks haven’t spilled across borders.

Although WHO said nearly 200 monkeypox cases have been reported, that seemed a likely undercount. On Friday, Spanish authorities said the number of cases there had risen to 98, including one woman, whose infection is “directly related” to a chain of transmission that had been previously limited to men, according to officials in the region of Madrid.

U.K. officials added 16 more cases to their monkeypox tally, making Britain’s total 106. And Portugal said its caseload jumped to 74 cases on Friday.

Doctors in Britain, Spain, Portugal, Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere have noted that the majority of infections to date have been in gay and bisexual men, or men who have sex with men. The disease is no more likely to affect people because of their sexual orientation and scientists warn the virus could infect others if transmission isn’t curbed.

WHO’s Briand said that based on how past outbreaks of the disease in Africa have evolved, the current situation appeared “containable.”

Still, she said WHO expected to see more cases reported in the future, noting “we don’t know if we are just seeing the peak of the iceberg (or) if there are many more cases that are undetected in communities,” she said.

As countries including Britain, Germany, Canada and the U.S. begin evaluating how smallpox vaccines might be used to curb the outbreak, WHO said its expert group was assessing the evidence and would provide guidance soon.

Dr. Rosamund Lewis, head of WHO’s smallpox department, said that “there is no need for mass vaccination,” explaining that monkeypox does not spread easily and typically requires skin-to-skin contact for transmission. No vaccines have been specifically developed against monkeypox, but WHO estimates that smallpox vaccines are about 85% effective.

She said countries with vaccine supplies could consider them for those at high risk of the disease, like close contacts of patients or health workers, but that monkeypox could mostly be controlled by isolating contacts and continued epidemiological investigations.

Given the limited global supply of smallpox vaccines, WHO’s emergencies chief Dr. Mike Ryan said the agency would be working with its member countries to potentially develop a centrally controlled stockpile, similar to the ones it has helped manage to distribute during outbreaks of yellow fever, meningitis, and cholera in countries that can’t afford them.

“We’re talking about providing vaccines for a targeted vaccination campaign, for targeted therapeutics,” Ryan said. “So, the volumes don’t necessarily need to be big, but every country may need access to a small amount of vaccine.”

Most monkeypox patients experience only fever, body aches, chills and fatigue. People with more serious illness may develop a rash and lesions on the face and hands that can spread to other parts of the body.
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When asked if he is afraid for his life, Dr. Denis Mukwege responded candidly: “I am human.” Due to the nature of his work, the renowned gynecological surgeon has received death threats for years.

But the Congolese Nobel Peace Prize laureate said he draws his strength from the women he treats. Patients who come to him to heal after going through unimaginable horrors.

“The women I’m treating are so powerful,” Mukwege said in an interview with VOA’s Straight Talk Africa TV program. “What I’m doing is just a small sense if I compare what they [rape survivors have been through] in the situation of conflict where everyone wants to use them.”

He is now honoring the women he says inspired him, including his mother, in a new book titled “The Power of Women: A Doctor’s Journey of Hope and Healing.” In it, he reexamines the agency of women in spaces and platforms where decisions are made and at times despite some patriarchal societies that often fail women, he said, women continue to give back and nurture for a greater good.

Ukraine, Ethiopia rape survivors

Mukwege’s work is particularly relevant today as sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war in conflicts around the globe. He used two examples to illustrate the urgency of the issue: Ukraine and Ethiopia.

Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, his foundation had established contact with women in Donbas who were raped in 2014 when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. There have been more than 700 reports of rape by Russian forces in Ukraine since the February invasion, the Ukrainian parliament’s human rights ombudsman said May 9. In northern Ethiopia, both government and Tigrayan forces have been accused of sexual violence. Nisha Varia, formerly the advocacy director of Human Rights Watch’s women’s rights division, told VOA that rape in Tigray is being used as a weapon and is accompanied by ethnic slurs and other degradation.

Mukwege said when rape is used during conflicts, it is “used to humiliate, to just make the so-called enemy to feel powerless, to be in a situation that is completely humiliating and you can’t really fight against it. It’s a weapon, but it’s a strategy of war,” he said.

But he said he is heartened by an international outcry about the violence against women in Ukraine. He would like to see the same outcry against atrocities in other parts of the world.

“The international community should react in each conflict because the suffering is universal and the reaction against the suffering or to take care of the suffering people should be also universal,” he said, adding that “the case of Ukraine shows us that if there is a will, we have the capacity to stop atrocities.”

Mukwege said a universal sentiment connects most women who have been raped, whether he speaks to victims in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere. He said perpetrators leave a sense of fear and that you hear victims saying, “they’ll kill me,” he said. “Most of the women have the impression that they don’t exist at all after being raped.”

Mukwege, who met with senior U.S. officials and first lady Jill Biden during his visit to Washington, is also calling for more efforts to prosecute perpetrators so women can receive justice.

 

“I think that justice is very important. It’s not revenge,” he said. “Justice is not only pressure against the perpetrators, but justice is needed for victims because in the process of healing, victims need really to be recognized as a victim. They need really to get someone with this power, this authority, to say you are not guilty. It’s not your fault.”

Justice and resilience

Death threats against Mukwege at times come from unknown sources and he has been forced to live at Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, or the DRC, where he treats rape survivors. “I can’t leave the hospital without an escort. I have the police who are taking care of me,” he said. “To get this kind of life living in the hospital with your patients and my family and so on. This is a terrible thing.”

Since 1999, Mukwege and his team have treated more than 50,000 survivors of sexual violence at the hospital he founded [[ https://panzifoundation.org/dr-denis-mukwege/ ]]. The hospital also treats the psychological trauma of women caught up in the ongoing violence between militia groups in the eastern DRC.

Mukwege said those resilient women are the best hope for some of the world’s war-torn regions. After they have healed, they demand change.

“When women stand up after being treated, they didn’t stand for themselves, they are standing for themselves and for their children, for their family. For me, this is really wonderful. Society can’t protect them, but when they get healing and stand up, they stand up and raise their voice for all the community.”
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Officials from the Group of Seven wealthy nations announced Friday that they will aim to largely end greenhouse gas emissions from their power sectors by 2035, making it highly unlikely that those countries will burn coal for electricity beyond that date. 

Ministers from the G-7 countries meeting in Berlin also announced a target to have a “highly decarbonized road sector by 2030,” meaning that electric vehicles would dominate new car sales by the end of the decade. 

And in a move aimed at ending the recurring conflict between rich and poor nations during international climate talks, the G-7 recognized for the first time the need to provide developing countries with additional financial aid to cope with the loss and damage caused by global warming. 

The agreements, which will be put to leaders next month at the G-7 summit in Elmau, Germany, were largely welcomed by climate activists. 

“The 2035 target for power sector decarbonisation is a real breakthrough. In practice, this means countries need to phase out coal by 2030 at the latest,” said Luca Bergamaschi, director of Rome-based campaign group ECCO. 

Coal is a heavily polluting fossil fuel that is responsible for a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans. While there are ways to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of coal, experts say it is almost impossible to reduce it to zero, meaning it will likely have to be the first fossil fuel to be phased out. 

G-7 members Britain, France and Italy have already set themselves deadlines to stop burning coal for electricity in the next few years. Germany and Canada are aiming for 2030; Japan wants more time; while the Biden administration has set a target of ending fossil fuel use for electricity generation in the United States by 2035. 

A common target would put pressure on other major polluters to follow suit and build on the compromise deal reached at last year’s U.N. climate summit, where nations committed merely to “phase down” rather than “phase out” coal — with no fixed date. 

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry called the agreements reached in Berlin “very comprehensive and forward-leaning.” 

“I think it will help lay the groundwork for what has to happen at the G-20,” he told The Associated Press, referring to a meeting later this year of the broader Group of 20 leading and emerging economies, who are responsible for 80% of global emissions. 

Getting all G-20 countries to sign on to the ambitious targets set by some of the most advanced economies will be difficult, as countries such as China, India and Indonesia remain heavily reliant on coal. 

Under pressure to step up their financial aid to poor nations, the G-7 ministers in Berlin said they recognized that “action and support for vulnerable countries, populations and vulnerable groups need to be further scaled up.” 

This includes governments and companies “providing enhanced support regarding averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse impacts of climate change,” they said. 

Developing countries have for years demanded a clear commitment that they will receive funds to cope with the destruction wrought by climate change. Wealthy nations have resisted the idea, however, for fear of being held liable for costly disasters linked to their emissions. 

“After years of roadblocks, the G-7 finally recognize that they need to financially support poor countries in addressing climate-related losses and damages,” said David Ryfisch of the Berlin-based environmental campaign group Germanwatch. 

“But that recognition is not enough, they need to put actual money on the table,” he added. “It is now up to (German Chancellor Olaf) Scholz to mobilize significant financial commitments by leaders at the Elmau summit.” 

Germany’s energy and climate minister, Robert Habeck, said the 40-page communique couldn’t hide the fact that G-7 countries had long been laggards on combating global warming. 

“But we’re trying to make up for those things that didn’t go so well in the past,” he said. “Including on climate finance.” 

Speaking at a former coal depot, later converted into a gas storage facility and now home to clean energy startups, Habeck also highlighted the pledge by G-7 countries to end what he called the “absurdity” of fossil fuel subsidies in the coming years. 

Separately, the United States and Germany signed an agreement Friday to deepen their bilateral cooperation on shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The deal will see the two countries work together to develop and deploy technologies that will speed up that clean energy transition, particularly in the area of offshore wind power, zero-emissions vehicles and hydrogen. 

The U.S. and Germany pledged to also collaborate on promoting ambitious climate policies and energy security worldwide. 

Kerry said both countries aim to reap the benefits of shifting to clean energy early, through the creation of new jobs and opportunities for businesses in the growing market for renewables. 

Such markets depend on common standards of what hydrogen can be classified as “green,” for example. Officials will now work on reaching a common definition to ensure that hydrogen produced on one side of the Atlantic can be sold on the other side. 

Habeck said the agreement reflected the urgency of tackling global warming. Scientists have said steep emissions cuts need to happen worldwide this decade if the goals set in the 2015 Paris climate accord are to be met. 

“Time is literally running out,” Habeck said, calling climate change “the challenge of our political generation.” 

 
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