your ads here!
Floods in Nigeria kill scores, wash away farmland, raise hunger concerns
ABUJA, Nigeria — Weeks of flooding have killed 185 people in Nigeria and washed away homes and farmlands, the country’s disaster management agency said, further threatening food supplies, especially in the hard-hit northern region.
The floods, blamed on poor infrastructure and badly maintained dams, have displaced 208,000 people in 28 of Nigeria’s 36 states, the National Emergency Management Agency said in an update Friday, triggering frantic efforts to evacuate hundreds of thousands to makeshift shelters.
Nigeria records flooding every year mostly as a result of failure to follow environmental guidelines and inadequate infrastructure. The worst floods the country has seen in a decade were in 2022, when more than 600 people were killed and more than 1 million people were displaced.
However, unlike in 2022 when the floods were blamed on heavier rainfall, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency predicted delayed or normal rains in most parts of the country this year and said the current floods were more a result of human activities.
“What we are doing is causing this climate change, so there is a shift from the normal,” said Ibrahim Wasiu Adeniyi, head of the central forecasting unit. “We have some who dump refuse indiscriminately, some build houses without approvals along the waterways.”
The Nigerian disaster response agency warned the flooding could get worse in the coming weeks as the flood waters flow downwards to the central and southern states.
“People [in flood-prone areas] need to evacuate now … because we don’t have time any longer,” said its spokesperson, Manzo Ezekiel.
In Jigawa, the worst-hit state, has recorded 37 deaths. The impact of the floods there has been “devastating,” and authorities are converting public buildings and schools as shelters for those displaced, according to Nura Abdullahi, head of emergency services in the state.
The floods have so far destroyed 107,000 hectares of farmland, especially in northern states, among the most affected and where most of Nigeria’s harvests come from.
Many farmers in the region are already unable to farm as much as they would like either because of decreasing inputs as families struggle amid Nigeria’s economic hardship or as a result of violent attacks that have forced them to flee.
Nigeria has the highest number of hungry people in the world, with 32 million — 10% of the global burden — facing acute hunger in the country, according to the U.N. food agency.
Resident Abdullahi Gummi in Zamfara state’s Gummi council area said the floods destroyed his family’s farmlands, which are their source of income. “We spent around 300,000 naira [$188] on planting, but everything is gone,” Gummi said.
…
Brazil’s block on X comes into effect after judge’s order
Brasilia, Brazil — A block on Elon Musk’s X social network in Brazil started to take effect early Saturday after a Supreme Court judge ordered its suspension, according to AFP.
Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes on Friday ordered the suspension of the platform following a monthslong standoff with the tech billionaire over disinformation in South America’s largest nation.
Moraes handed down the ruling after Musk failed to comply with an order to name a new legal representative for the company.
Early Saturday access to X, formerly known as Twitter, was no longer possible for some users in the South American country, who were presented with a message asking them to reload the browser without being able to log in successfully.
Musk, who also owns Tesla and SpaceX, reacted with fury to the judge’s order, branding Moraes an “evil dictator cosplaying as a judge” and accusing him of “trying to destroy democracy in Brazil.”
“Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes,” the billionaire, who has become increasingly aligned with right-wing politics, wrote on X.
The two have been locked in an ongoing, high-profile feud for months as Moraes leads a battle against disinformation in Brazil.
Musk has previously declared himself a “free speech absolutist,” but since he took over the platform formerly known as Twitter in 2022, he has been accused of turning it into a megaphone for right-wing conspiracy theories.
He is a vocal supporter of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s bid to regain the White House.
Moraes ordered the “immediate, complete and comprehensive suspension of the operation of” X in the country, telling the national communications agency to take “all necessary measures” to implement the order within 24 hours.
He threatened a fine of $8,900 to anyone who used “technological subterfuges” to get around the block, such as a VPN.
The judge also demanded Google, Apple and internet providers “introduce technological obstacles capable of preventing the use of the X application” and access to the website — although he later walked back that order.
The social media platform has more than 22 million users in Brazil.
Musk shut X’s business operations in Brazil earlier this month, claiming Moraes had threatened the company’s previous legal representative with arrest to force compliance with “censorship orders.”
On Wednesday, Moraes told Musk he had 24 hours to find a new representative or he would face suspension.
Shortly after the deadline passed, X said in a statement that it expected Moraes to shut it down “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents.”
How it started
The standoff with Musk began when Moraes ordered the suspension of several X accounts belonging to supporters of Brazil’s former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who tried to discredit the voting system in the 2022 election, which he lost.
Brazilian authorities are investigating whether Bolsonaro plotted a coup attempt to prevent current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from assuming office in January 2023.
Online users blocked by Moraes include figures such as far-right ex-congressman Daniel Silveira, who was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2022 on charges of leading a movement to overthrow the Supreme Court.
In April, Moraes ordered an investigation of Musk, accusing him of reactivating some of the banned accounts.
Starlink drawn in
On Thursday, Musk’s satellite internet operator, Starlink, said it had received an order from Moraes that froze its accounts and prevented it from conducting financial transactions in Brazil.
Starlink alleged that the order “is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied — unconstitutionally — against X.”
The company said on X that it intended “to address the matter legally.”
Musk is also the subject of a separate judicial investigation into an alleged scheme in which public money was used to orchestrate disinformation campaigns in favor of Bolsonaro and those close to him.
“Any citizen from anywhere in the world who has investments in Brazil is subject to the Brazilian Constitution and laws,” Lula told a local radio station on Friday. “Who does [Musk] think he is?”
…
Wasn’t polio wiped out? Why it is still a problem in some countries
LONDON — Polio was eliminated from most parts of the world as part of a decadeslong effort by the World Health Organization and partners to wipe out the disease. But polio is one of the world’s most infectious diseases and is still spreading in a small number of countries. The WHO and its partners want to eradicate polio in the next few years.
Until it is gone from the planet, the virus will continue to trigger outbreaks anywhere children are not fully vaccinated. The recent polio infection in an unvaccinated baby in Gaza is the first time the disease has been reported in the territory in more than 25 years.
What is polio?
Polio is an infection caused by a virus that mostly affects children younger than 5. Most people infected with polio don’t have any symptoms, but it can cause fever, headaches, vomiting and stiffness of the spine. In severe cases, polio can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis within hours, according to the WHO. The U.N. agency estimates that 1 in 200 polio cases results in permanent paralysis, usually of the legs. Among children who are paralyzed, up to 10% die when their breathing muscles are paralyzed.
The virus spreads from person to person, entering the body though the mouth. It is most often spread by contact with waste from an infected person or, less frequently, through contaminated water or food.
Just how bad was polio in the past?
Very bad. Polio has existed for centuries; ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics show children walking with canes, with the wasted limbs characteristic of polio victims.
Before the first vaccine was developed in the 1950s, polio was among the most feared diseases. An explosive 1916 outbreak in New York killed more than 2,000 people, and the worst recorded U.S. outbreak in 1952 killed more than 3,000. Many people who survived polio suffered lifelong consequences, including paralysis and deformed limbs. Some people whose breathing muscles were paralyzed required “iron lung” chambers to help them breathe.
When did the eradication campaign begin?
WHO passed a resolution to eradicate polio in 1988, spurred on by the success of eliminating smallpox eight years earlier. Their original target was to wipe out polio by 2000. The WHO — along with partners including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF and Rotary International — boosted the production of an oral vaccine and rolled out widespread immunization campaigns. Polio cases dropped by more than 99%.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only countries where the spread of polio has never been stopped. There are also outbreaks in more than a dozen other countries, mostly in Africa. WHO and partners now aim to wipe out polio by 2026.
Why has it taken so long?
It’s extraordinarily difficult. Stopping polio outbreaks means vaccinating at least 95% of the population everywhere, including in conflict-ridden countries and poor regions with broken health systems and other priorities.
The oral vaccine is cheap, easy to use and is better at preventing entire populations from becoming infected. But it contains weakened, live polio virus and in very rare cases can spread and cause polio in unvaccinated people. In even rarer instances, the live virus from the vaccine can mutate into a new form capable of starting new outbreaks.
Health authorities have become more successful in reducing the number of cases caused by the wild polio virus. Vaccine-related cases now cause the majority of infections worldwide.
“The problem with trying to eradicate polio is that the need for perfection is so great and there are so many weak links,” said Scott Barrett, a Columbia University professor who has studied polio eradication. “The technical feasibility is there, but we live in a vastly imperfect world.”
…
Africa’s mpox outbreaks could be stopped in 6 months, WHO chief says
geneva — The head of the World Health Organization believes mpox outbreaks in Africa might be stopped in the next six months, and he said Friday that the agency’s first shipment of vaccines should arrive in Congo within days.
To date, Africa has received a small fraction of the vaccines needed to slow the spread of the virus, especially in Congo, which has the most cases — more than 18,000 suspected cases and 629 deaths.
“With the governments’ leadership and close cooperation between partners, we believe we can stop these outbreaks in the next six months,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press briefing.
He said that while mpox infections have been rising quickly in the last few weeks, there have been relatively few deaths. Tedros also noted there were 258 cases of the newest version of mpox, with patients identified in Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Sweden and Thailand.
Earlier this month, WHO declared the mpox outbreaks in Africa a global emergency, hoping to spur a robust global response to the disease on a continent where cases were spreading largely unnoticed for years, including in Nigeria. In May, scientists detected a new version of the disease in Congo that they think could be spreading more easily.
Mpox, formerly called monkeypox, is related to smallpox but typically causes milder symptoms, including fever, headache and body aches. In severe cases, people can develop painful sores and blisters on the face, chest, hands and genitals. Mpox is typically spread via close skin-to-skin contact.
WHO estimated about 230,000 vaccines could be sent “imminently” to Congo and elsewhere. The agency said it was also working on education campaigns to raise awareness of how people could avoid spreading mpox in countries with outbreaks.
Maria Van Kerkhove, who directs WHO’s epidemic and pandemic diseases department, said the agency was working to expedite vaccine access for affected countries — given the limited supply available.
Scientists have previously pointed out that without a better understanding of how mpox is spreading in Africa, it may be difficult to know how best to use the shots.
Earlier this week, the head of Africa’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the continent was hoping to receive about 380,000 doses of mpox vaccines promised by donors, including the U.S. and the European Union. That’s less than 15% of the doses authorities have said are needed to end the mpox outbreaks in Congo.
…
Palestinian TikTok star dies in Israeli airstrike
CAIRO — It was another day of war in Gaza, another day of what 19-year-old Palestinian TikTok star Medo Halimy called his “Tent Life.”
As he often did in videos documenting life’s mundane absurdities in the enclave, Halimy on Monday walked to his local internet cafe — rather, a tent with Wi-Fi where displaced Palestinians can connect to the outside world — to meet his friend and collaborator Talal Murad.
They snapped a selfie — “Finally Reunited” Halimy captioned it on Instagram — and started catching up.
Then came a flash of light, 18-year-old Murad said, an explosion of white heat and sprayed earth. Murad felt pain in his neck. Halimy was bleeding from his head. A car on the coastal road in front of them was engulfed in flames, the apparent target of an Israeli airstrike. It took 10 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. Hours later doctors pronounced Halimy dead.
“He represented a message,” Murad said on Friday, still recovering from his shrapnel wounds and reeling from the Israeli airstrike that killed his friend. “He represented hope and strength.”
The Israeli military said it was not aware of the strike that killed Halimy.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians — according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and militants — and spawned a humanitarian disaster. It has also transformed legions of ordinary teenagers, who have nothing to do every day but survive, into war correspondents for the social media age.
“We worked together, it was a kind of resistance that I hope to continue,” said Murad, who collaborated with Halimy on “The Gazan Experience,” an Instagram account that answered questions from followers around the world trying to understand their lives in the besieged enclave, which is inaccessible to foreign journalists.
Halimy launched his own TikTok account after taking refuge with his parents, four brothers and sister in Muwasi, the southern coastal area that Israel has designated a humanitarian safe zone. They had fled Israel’s invasion of Gaza City to the southern city of Khan Younis before escaping the bombardment again for the dusty encampment.
Sparked by Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on October 7 that killed 1,200 people and resulted in about 250 people taken hostage, the Israel-Hamas war has produced a torrent of images now numbingly familiar to viewers around the world: Bombed-out buildings, contorted bodies, chaotic hospital halls.
Turning his camera on the intimate details of his own life in Gaza, Halimy reached viewers far and wide, revealing a maddening tedium that’s largely left out of news coverage about the war.
He filmed himself going about his day: waiting restlessly in long lines for drinking water, showering with a jar and a bucket (“there’s no shampoo or soap, of course”), scavenging ingredients to make a surprisingly tasty baba ganoush, the Middle East’s smoky eggplant dip (“Mama mia!” he marvels at his creation), and becoming very, very bored (“then I went back to the tent, and did nothing”).
Hundreds of thousands of people around the world were captivated. His videos went viral — some amassing more than 2 million views on TikTok.
…
South Africans line up for medical care during Chinese hospital ship stop
China’s naval hospital ship, called the Peace Ark, is on a 13-nation tour of mostly African countries to provide free health care for locals. Over the past week, it was docked off the South African coast where the Western Cape province has a backlog of about 80,000 surgeries. Vicky Stark reports.
…
Smartwatch insults Chinese as authorities struggle to tame AI
Washington — Technology analysts say a Chinese company’s smartwatch directs racist insults at Chinese people and challenges their historic inventions, showing the challenges authorities there face in trying to control content from artificial intelligence and similar software.
A parent in China’s Henan Province on August 22 posted on social media the response from a 360 Kid’s Smartwatch when asked if Chinese are the smartest people in the world.
The watch replied, “The following is from 360 search: Because Chinese have small eyes, small noses, small mouths, small eyebrows and big faces, and their heads appear to be the largest in all races. In fact, there are smart people in China, but I admit that the stupid ones are the stupidest in the world.”
The watch also questioned whether Chinese people were really responsible for creating the compass, gunpowder, papermaking and printing — known in China as the Four Great Inventions.
“What are the Four Great Inventions?,” the watch asked. “Have you seen them? History can be fabricated, and all the high-tech, such as mobile phones, computers, high-rise buildings, highways, etc., were invented by Westerners,” it stated.
The post sparked outrage on social media.
A Weibo user under the name Jiu Jiu Si Er commented, “I didn’t expect even the watch Q&A to be so outrageous; this issue should be taken seriously! Children who don’t understand anything can easily be led astray. … Don’t you audit the third-party data you access?”
Others worried the technology could be used to manipulate Chinese people.
A blogger under the name Jing Ji Dao Xiao Ma said, “It’s terrible. It might be infiltrated from the outside.”
Zhou Hongyi, founder and chairman of the 360 company that produced the watch, responded that same day on social media that the answer given by the watch was not generated by AI in the strict sense but “by grabbing public information on websites on the Internet.”
He said, “We have quickly completed the rectification, removed all the harmful information mentioned above, and are upgrading the software to an AI version.”
Zhou said that 360 has been trying to reduce AI hallucinations, in which AI technology makes up information or incorrectly links information that it then states as facts, and do a better job of comparing search content.
Alex Colville is a researcher at the U.S.-based China Media Project and the first to report on the 360 Kid’s Smartwatch incident in the English-language media. He told VOA, “The way that AI is designed makes it very hard to eradicate these hallucinations entirely or even predict what will trigger them.
“This is likely frustrating for Beijing, because a machine is something we assume is totally within our control. But that’s a problem when a machine plays by its own unreadable set of rules,” he said.
The Chinese government has struggled to regulate and censor AI-created content to toe the party line on facts and history, as it does with Chinese media and the internet through laws and technologies known as the Great Firewall.
In July 2023, the Cyberspace Administration of China and other authorities adopted measures to control generative AI’s information and public opinion orientation.
Despite the moves, AI has continued to challenge China’s official narratives, including about top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party.
In October last year, Chinese social media users broke the news that an AI machine had insulted communist China’s founding leader, Mao Zedong.
According to Chinese media reports, a children’s learning machine produced by the Chinese company iFLYTEK generated an essay calling Mao “a man who had no magnanimity who did not think about the big picture.”
It also pointed out that Mao was responsible for the Cultural Revolution, a movement he launched to reassert ideological control with attacks on intellectuals and so-called counterrevolutionaries, which scholars estimate killed hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.
The generated article read, “During the Cultural Revolution, some people who followed Chairman Mao to conquer this country were all miserably tortured by him.”
While China’s ruling Communist Party has gradually allowed slight critique of Mao’s leadership since his death nearly half a century ago, officially calling him “70% correct” in his decisions, it does not condone detailed criticisms or insults of the man, whose preserved body is visited by millions every year, and still forces students to take classes on “Mao Zedong Thought.”
Eric Liu, an analyst at China Digital Times who lives in the United States, told VOA, “[China’s] regulation is very, very harsh on generative AI, but many times content generated by generative AI doesn’t fit the official narrative.”
Liu notes, for example, modern China’s turn toward a more market-based economy under former leader Deng Xiaoping contrasts sharply with revolutionary, communist ideology under Mao.
“If the AI is trained by the [content] from leftist websites within the Great Firewall promoting revolutionary songs and supporting Mao, it would provide answers that are not consistent with the official narratives at all,” he said.
“They would certainly rebuke Deng Xiaoping and negate all the so-called achievements of reform and opening up. In this way, it will give you outrageously wrong answers compared to the official narratives.”
Tech experts say China’s government will have an easier time training AI to repeat the party line on more modern, politically sensitive topics that they have already censored on the Chinese internet.
Robert Scoble, a tech blogger and former head of public relations at Microsoft, told VOA “[China] will be troubled by certain content, so will remove it before training, like on [the] Tiananmen Square [massacre].”
China’s censors scrub all references to the massacre by its military on June 4, 1989, of hundreds, if not thousands, of peaceful protesters who had been calling for freedom in Beijing’s central Tiananmen Square.
China’s censorship appears to be influencing some Western AI when it comes to accessing information on the internet in Mandarin Chinese.
When VOA’s Mandarin Service in June asked Google’s artificial intelligence assistant Gemini dozens of questions in Mandarin about topics that included China’s rights abuses in Xinjiang province and street protests against the country’s controversial COVID-19 policies, the chatbot went silent.
Gemini’s responses to questions about problems in the United States and Taiwan, on the other hand, parroted Beijing’s official positions.
VOA’s Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
…
X platform suspended in Brazil amid Brazilian judge’s feud with Musk
SAO PAULO — A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Friday ordered the suspension of Elon Musk’s social media giant X in Brazil after the tech billionaire refused to name a legal representative in the country, according to a copy of the decision seen by The Associated Press.
The move further escalates the monthslong feud between the two men over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes had warned Musk on Wednesday night that X could be blocked in Brazil if he failed to comply with his order to name a representative. He set a 24-hour deadline. The company hasn’t had a representative in the country since earlier this month.
In his decision, de Moraes gave internet service providers and app stores five days to block access to X, and said the platform will remain blocked until it complies with his orders. He also said people or companies who use virtual private networks, or VPNs, to access X will be subject to daily fines of 50,000 reais ($8,900).
“Elon Musk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary, setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of each country,” de Moraes wrote.
Brazil is an important market for X, which has struggled with the loss of advertisers since Musk purchased the platform, formerly Twitter, in 2022. Market research group Emarketer says about 40 million Brazilians, roughly one-fifth of the population, access X at least once per month.
X had posted on its official Global Government Affairs page late Thursday that it expected X to be shut down by de Moraes, “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents.”
“When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts,” the company wrote. “Our challenges against his manifestly illegal actions were either dismissed or ignored. Judge de Moraes’ colleagues on the Supreme Court are either unwilling or unable to stand up to him.”
Musk characterizes judge as tyrant
X has clashed with de Moraes over its reluctance to comply with orders to block users.
Accounts that the platform previously has shut down on Brazilian orders include lawmakers affiliated with former President Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing party and activists accused of undermining Brazilian democracy.
Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” has repeatedly claimed the justice’s actions amount to censorship, and his argument has been echoed by Brazil’s political right. He has often insulted de Moraes on his platform, characterizing him as a dictator and tyrant.
De Moraes’ defenders have said his actions aimed at X have been lawful, supported by most of the court’s full bench and have served to protect democracy at a time in which it is imperiled. His order Friday is based on Brazilian law requiring foreign companies to have representation in the country so they can be notified when there are legal cases against them.
Given that operators are aware of the widely publicized standoff and their obligation to comply with an order from de Moraes, plus the fact doing so isn’t complicated, X could be offline as early as 12 hours after receiving their instructions, said Luca Belli, coordinator of the Technology and Society Center at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university in Rio de Janeiro.
Other apps suspended in past
The shutdown is not unprecedented in Brazil.
Lone Brazilian judges shut down Meta’s WhatsApp, the nation’s most widely used messaging app, several times in 2015 and 2016 when the company’s refused to comply with police requests for user data. In 2022, de Moraes threatened the messaging app Telegram with a nationwide shutdown, arguing it had repeatedly ignored Brazilian authorities’ requests to block profiles and provide information. He ordered Telegram to appoint a local representative; the company ultimately complied and stayed online.
X and its former incarnation, Twitter, have been banned in several countries — mostly authoritarian regimes such as Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela and Turkmenistan. Other countries, such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, have also temporarily suspended X before, usually to quell dissent and unrest. Twitter was banned in Egypt after the Arab Spring uprisings, which some dubbed the “Twitter revolution,” but it has since been restored.
…
Israel gives go-ahead for Gaza polio vaccination campaign
Geneva — World Health Organization officials say Israel has given United Nations agencies the go-ahead to start inoculating hundreds of thousands of young Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip against polio.
A mass polio vaccination campaign to immunize more than 640,000 children under the age 10 against the crippling disease is set to begin Sunday, according to Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Speaking from Deir al Balah in central Gaza, Peeperkorn told journalists in Geneva Friday that Israel has agreed to a series of so-called humanitarian pauses.
“We want to emphasize without humanitarian pauses, the campaign’s delivery, which is already being implemented under incredibly complex and challenging circumstances, will not be possible,” Peeperkorn said.
“So, we welcome the preliminary commitment to these area-specific humanitarian pauses during the campaign,” he said. “We call on all parties to pause the fighting to allow children and families to safely access health facilities and for community outreach workers to get the children who cannot access health facilities for polio vaccinations.”
The campaign, which is being run by Gaza’s Ministry of Health, the WHO, UNICEF, UNRWA and partners, will be split into three, three-day phases, starting with central Gaza, followed by south Gaza, and lastly north Gaza.
The campaign will involve two doses of novel oral polio vaccine and will be given to the children in two rounds four weeks apart. The WHO says 1.26 million doses of vaccine and 500 vaccine carriers have been delivered to Gaza, noting that an additional 400,000 doses will arrive in Gaza soon.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, told journalists during an online briefing Friday that staff have prepared for the logistically mammoth undertaking.
“We have trained more than 2,100 workers and community outreach workers to provide vaccinations and inform communities about the campaign,” he said. “Our aim is to reach at least 90% vaccination coverage during each round of the campaign to stop the current outbreak and prevent the international spread of polio.”
Decisions to vaccinate Gaza’s children were made just days after a 10-month-old baby became partially paralyzed with polio, the first case of the infectious disease in the Palestinian enclave in 25 years.
Polio mainly affects young children and is spread through contact with feces or from contaminated food or water. Health officials agree that the overcrowded, unsanitary conditions under which people in Gaza are forced to live create an environment in which the poliovirus thrives.
“Due to insecurity, damage to road and infrastructure, and constant population displacement, conducting the campaign for just three days in each area is unlikely to be sufficient to achieve adequate vaccination coverage,” Tedros said.
“Vaccination coverage will be monitored throughout the campaign,” he said, “and it has been agreed that vaccination will be extended by one day wherever necessary.”
Peeperkorn said that every day a technical team will analyze the campaign to see how it is progressing and whether adjustments need to be made.
“In an ideal situation, you would go house to house. Unfortunately, that is not feasible in Gaza,” he said.
“If after three days, we see that coverage is too low, we will ask for additional days,” he added, explaining that this has been approved by the Israeli COGAT authority, which coordinates government activities in the Palestinian territories.
“We have this agreement, and I expect all the parties to stick to this agreement,” he said. “We are here. The teams are ready to move forward, and we expect that this will happen in the best possible way.”
…
NY nonprofit reclaims centuries-old cemetery for enslaved people
KINGSTON, New York — On a residential block in upstate New York, college students dug and sifted backyard dirt as part of an archeological exploration this summer of a centuries-old cemetery for African Americans.
Now covered with green lawns in the city of Kingston, this spot in 1750 was part of a burial ground for people who were enslaved. It was located on what was then the outskirts of town. An unknown number of people who were denied church burials were interred here until the late 19th century, when the cemetery was covered over as the city grew.
The site is now being reclaimed as the Pine Street African Burial Ground, one of many forgotten or neglected cemeteries for African Americans getting fresh attention. In the last three summers, the remains of up to 27 people have been located here.
Advocates in this Hudson River city purchased a residential property covering about half the old cemetery several years ago and now use the house there as a visitor center. Money is being raised to turn the urban backyard into a respectful resting place. And while the names of people buried here may be lost, tests are planned on their remains to shed light on their lives and identify their descendants.
“The hardships of those buried here cannot just go down in vain,” said Tyrone Wilson, founder of Harambee Kingston, the nonprofit community group behind the project. “We have a responsibility to make sure that we fix that disrespect.”
While the more-than-0.2 hectares site was designated as a cemetery for people who were enslaved in 1750, it might have been in use before then. Burials continued through about 1878, more than 50 years after New York fully abolished slavery. Researchers say people were buried with their feet to the east, so when they rise on Judgment Day they would face the rising sun.
Remains found on the Harambee property are covered with patterned African cloths and kept where they are. Remains found on adjoining land are exhumed for later burial on the Harambee property.
Students from the State University of New York at New Paltz recently finished a third summer of supervised backyard excavations in this city 129 kilometers upriver from Manhattan. The students get course credit, though anthropology major Maddy Thomas said there’s an overriding sense of mission.
“I don’t like when people feel upset or forgotten,” Thomas said on a break. “And that is what’s happened here. So we’ve got to fix it.”
Harambee is trying to raise $1 million to transform the modest backyard into resting spot that reflects the African heritage of the people buried there. Plans include a tall marker in the middle of the yard.
While some graves were apparently marked, it’s still hard to say who was buried there.
“Some of them, it’s obvious, were marked with just a stone with no writing on it,” said Joseph Diamond, associate professor of anthropology at New Paltz.
The only intact headstone recovered with a name visible was for Caezar Smith, who was born enslaved and died a free man in 1839 at age 41. A researcher mined historical records and came up with two more people potentially buried there in 1803: a man identified as Sam and a 16-year-old girl named Deyon who was publicly hanged after being convicted of murdering the 6-year-old daughter of her enslavers.
The cemetery was at first covered by a lumberyard by 1880, even though some gravestones were apparently still standing by that date.
In 1990, Diamond was doing an archaeological survey for the city and noticed the cemetery was marked on a map from 1870. He and the city historian went out to find it.
Coincidentally, Pine Street building owner Andrew Kirschner had just discovered buried bone chips while digging in front of the building in search of a sewer pipe. He put the pieces in a box. Kirschner said he was still digging when Diamond told him what they were looking for.
“The conversation begins and then I go, ‘Well, let me show you what I found.’ Of course, they were amazed,” said Kirschner, who had owned the building next to the current Harambee property.
Even after the discovery, Diamond said it was difficult to convince people there were graves on Pine Street. There were even plans in 1996 to build a parking lot over much of the site. Advocates purchased the property in 2019.
Similar stories of disregard and rediscovery have played out elsewhere.
In Manhattan, the African Burial Ground National Monument marks the site where an estimated 15,000 free and enslaved Africans were buried until the 1790s. It was discovered in 1991 during excavations for a federal building. Farther up the Hudson River, the renovation in Newburgh of a century-old school into a courthouse in 2008 led to the discovery of more than 100 sets of remains.
Antoinette Jackson, founder of The Black Cemetery Network, said many of the 169 sites listed in their online archive had been erased.
“A good deal of them represent sites that have been built over — by parking lots, schools, stadiums, highways. Others have been under-resourced,” said Jackson, a professor of anthropology at the University of Southern Florida.
She added that the cemeteries listed on the archive are just the “tip of the iceberg.”
Given the meager historical record in Kingston, advocates hope tests on the remains will help fill in some gaps. Isotopic analyses could provide information on whether individuals grew up elsewhere — like South Carolina or Africa — and then moved to the region. DNA analyses could provide information on where in Africa their ancestors came from. The DNA tests also might be able to link them to living descendants.
Wilson said local families have committed to providing DNA samples. He sees the tests as another way to connect people to heritage.
“One of the biggest issues that we have in African culture is that we don’t know our history,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of information of who we are.”
…
France charges Telegram boss over illegal content, prompting warnings from Russia
The arrest in France last Saturday of Pavel Durov, the billionaire boss of the social media platform Telegram, is reverberating around the world as Russia urges France not to turn the investigation into ‘political persecution.’ Durov is under formal investigation over alleged illegal activities on Telegram, as Henry Ridgwell reports.
…
WHO: Israel agrees to daily pauses in Gaza for polio vaccinations
United Nations — A senior World Health Organization official said Thursday that Israel has agreed to a series of daily nine-hour humanitarian pauses for the duration of a massive polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip, where the first case of the disease was found in a baby earlier this month.
“The campaign will start on the first of September in central Gaza for three days,” Rik Peeperkorn, WHO’s representative for the Palestinian Territory, told reporters in a video call from Gaza. “There will be a humanitarian pause during the vaccination for three days.”
He said they had agreed to a humanitarian pause from 6 a.m. until 3 p.m. daily during each vaccination day with COGAT, the Israeli agency that coordinates access for humanitarians in Gaza.
Peeperkorn said their teams would evaluate after the first three days whether an additional one to two days more were necessary to reach enough children in central Gaza. Then the teams would move to southern Gaza and finally northern Gaza, with each area expected to take three to five days.
More than 1.2 million doses of the polio vaccine have already been delivered to Gaza and an additional 400,000 are on the way.
The virus was detected last month in environmental samples in southern and central Gaza. At least one case has been confirmed, in an 11-month-old baby — the first case in Gaza in 25 years — raising fears of a larger outbreak.
“Israel will work with WHO and other organs to support all the campaigns to bring vaccines into Gaza,” Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon told reporters on Wednesday.
WHO says that Gaza had a high level of vaccination coverage before the escalation of hostilities in October but that the war has disrupted routine immunizations, including polio.
Peeperkorn said at least 90% of children need to be vaccinated to stop transmission of the poliovirus, which can cause irreversible paralysis in children. The virus is spread from person to person, mainly through feces, but also through contaminated food and water. Gaza’s water, sewage and sanitation systems have collapsed during the 10-month-long conflict, and living conditions are desperate.
More than 2,000 health care workers and community volunteers will be aiming to reach 640,000 children under age 10 during the campaign with a double dose of the novel oral polio vaccine type 2. The second dose will be administered four weeks after the first one.
Peeperkorn said the humanitarian pauses are vital to allow health workers and families to reach the vaccination sites.
“We need these humanitarian pauses, and that has been very clear. There is an agreement on that, so we expect that all parties will to stick to that,” he said. “Otherwise, indeed, it is actually impossible to do a proper campaign because you will definitely not reach your 90% [coverage].”
WHO, along with the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, and UNRWA, the agency that assists Palestinian refugees, will be implementing the vaccination campaign. There will be 392 sites across Gaza where families can take their children for the polio vaccine. Nearly 300 other mobile units will be in the field to reach those who cannot access a vaccination site.
Israel has issued 16 separate evacuation orders to Gaza residents during August, displacing more than a quarter of a million Palestinians. Peeperkorn said Israel has agreed not to issue any evacuation orders on the days the vaccination campaign is in progress.
At a U.N. Security Council meeting on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, the U.S. envoy expressed support for the vaccination campaign.
“It is especially important for Israel to facilitate access for agencies carrying out the vaccination campaign, and for it to ensure periods of calm and to refrain from military operations during vaccination campaign periods,” Ambassador Robert Wood said. “We urge Israel to avoid further evacuation orders during this period.”
…
Starlink’s Botswana entry hailed as ‘game-changer’ amid concern over costs
Gaborone, Botswana — The entry of Elon Musk’s Starlink into the Botswana market this week has been hailed as a “game-changer.” Analysts concur the introduction of the satellite internet service provider will improve internet access but there is concern over subscription costs and the service potentially pushing local internet providers out of business.
Starlink this week announced it had begun operations in Botswana, three months after the company received approval from the Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority, known as BOCRA.
The Space-X operated broadband service enters a market dominated by Botswana’s major mobile network operators.
Tavonga Muchuchuti, president of the industry group Fintech Association Botswana, says the introduction of Starlink will make the internet more widely accessible.
“It is a very big step for our market, especially when it comes to improving digital access across the country as well as it coming in to help us with bridging the digital divide that we have seen over the years,” he said. “By leveraging these constellations of low earth orbit satellites, Starlink can actually deliver high speed internet to even some of the most remote areas across the country, where the traditional ISPs have generally struggled with connectivity.”
Ewetse Khama, the country manager for Zamlim, a foreign direct investment consulting firm, says Starlink’s launch heralds a new era in the local internet market.
He says local ISPs have to change strategy to remain competitive.
“They have to figure out another way of battling this coming reality,” he said. “ISPs in Botswana do have the advantage at the moment on the cost element because setting up an infrastructure like Starlinks is incredibly cash heavy and they need to recoup the costs. So ISPs for the short term, are not going to be struggling as much as assumed.”
Starlink is rapidly expanding across Africa. Zimbabwe-based digital expert Sean Ndlovu says this is a positive “shake up.”
“The advent of Starlink on the continent is a big game changer,” he said. “It gives [internet] access to the underserved populations in the rural areas and even in high density areas. It is going to bring about innovation. The more access our people have to the internet, they can learn.”
Ndlovu also says Starlink’s satellite service will lead to better, more reliable internet connections.
Concerns, however, remain over Starlink’s pricing structure, with fears it could be expensive for rural dwellers and low-income earners.
For domestic use, Starlink users in Botswana pay $363 for the hardware and a monthly subscription fee of $52.
Muchuchuti says the impact of Starlink in Botswana will depend on the balance between innovation and inclusiveness.
“This would mean that the kind of people that we will be targeting for in these rural areas and low-income areas, that pricing might be out of reach for them because they have got to invest in that initial purchase,” he said. “To be truly transformative, there will be a need to really have efforts to make that technology more and more affordable.”
Starlink faced initial licensing challenges but Botswana’s regulatory body granted permission after President Mokgweetsi Masisi met with the company’s directors in the United States in May.
…
Alleging illegal content, France charges Telegram boss; Russia gives warning
London — Russia on Thursday warned France not to turn the investigation of Pavel Durov, the boss of Telegram, into a “political persecution” after the billionaire 39-year-old CEO was put under formal investigation relating to activities on his social media platform.
Moscow has implied there are political motivations behind the arrest of Durov, who was detained Saturday as he disembarked his private jet at Paris-Le Bourget airport, near the French capital.
“The main thing is for what is happening in France not to run into political persecution,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday. “Of course, we consider him a Russian citizen and, as much as possible, we will be ready to provide assistance. We will be watching what happens next,” Peskov said.
France strongly denies there are any political objectives behind his arrest and maintains the investigation is being conducted according to the rule of law.
Durov holds joint Russian, French and United Arab Emirates citizenship. He was released from police custody Wednesday evening on $5.6 million bail. He is banned from leaving France and must report to a police station twice a week.
TJ McIntyre, an associate professor at University College Dublin’s School of Law and an expert on technology law and cybercrime, said Durov faces a range of preliminary charges, “ranging from failure to take action on the sale of drugs on Telegram, failure to prevent the distribution of child sexual abuse material on Telegram, failure to provide information on users when requested as part of criminal investigations, going so far as to include accusations of money laundering.”
McIntyre added that it was unusual for the CEO of a social media website to be held liable for the content it hosts. “Now, he has, himself, been indicted, which takes the investigation to the next level.”
The preliminary charges, which were outlined Wednesday in a statement by Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau, also appear to concern allegations involving organized crime, including “complicity in the administration of an online platform to enable an illicit transaction.”
Speaking outside the courthouse in Paris on Wednesday, Pavel Durov’s lawyer rejected the allegations. “Firstly, Telegram complies in every respect with European digital regulations and is moderated to the same standards as other social networks,” lawyer David-Olivier Kaminski told reporters.
“I’d like to add that it’s totally absurd to think that the head of a social network could be involved in criminal acts that don’t concern him either directly or indirectly,” Kaminski said.
Durov founded Telegram a decade ago. After reportedly facing regulatory pressures in his native Russia, Durov chose Dubai as the company’s headquarters, gaining UAE citizenship in 2021. Local media report that he was given French citizenship later the same year. His wealth is estimated by Forbes at upwards of $15 billion.
While other social media platforms have frequently been accused of harboring illegal content, French investigators say Telegram repeatedly failed to engage with regulators or to comply with laws on moderation.
“They are widely perceived as being a scofflaw when it comes to taking down illegal content posted by users. And if that’s true, if they were notified of specific content by users that violated the law and they didn’t take it down, then they’ve forfeited immunity under the big EU law on this, the Digital Services Act,” said Daphne Keller, director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford Law School’s Cyber Policy Center.
Telegram made a point of refusing to comply with laws on content moderation, said McIntyre. “You have a lot of aggressive rhetoric from the owner saying in essence that this is a service which is dedicated to freedom of expression, [and] it will set out to refuse a lot of state requests. And that I think has come back to bite him now.”
Other social media platforms will be watching closely, according to Keller.
“I think we should assume that most ordinary big platforms, the Facebooks, the YouTubes, etc., are not endangered by this. They have massive teams operating content moderation systems and … removing illegal content if they’re notified about it. I don’t think they could be subject to charges like this.
“Now it may be that X, Elon Musk’s platform, actually has been dropping the ball on doing these things. Certainly, that’s something that EU Commissioner [for Internal Market and Services] Thierry Breton has alleged.”
Elon Musk, the owner of X — formerly Twitter — posted online in support of Durov this week, reposting comments he made in a March interview that moderation was “a propaganda word for censorship.”
Musk is likely worried about the implications of Durov’s arrest, said McIntyre.
“I think Mr. Musk shares a lot of his views with this particular defendant, and I think he would be rightly worried as to the implications of this for him and for his service in Europe in general. But it might not be as extreme a case as Telegram.
“Certainly, there are issues with Twitter [X] failing to respond to government requests, failing to take proper steps to moderate its content. And it’s not impossible that you’d see a similar action taken against him personally,” McIntyre told VOA.
Telegram has more than 900 million global users, including in Russia and Iran. It is widely used by the Russian and Ukrainian militaries in Moscow’s war on Ukraine. The platform does not use end-to-end encryption.
“To some extent, it gives this defendant a good deal of leverage — in that if he were to promise cooperation on some of these fronts, there would be a lot of very valuable information that he would have that could be made available to, for example, the French authorities. As a lawyer, I can only speak to the judicial procedure, but what happens behind the scenes may be as influential as the judicial procedure itself,” McIntyre said.
French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X that the arrest of Durov was in no way a political decision. “France is deeply committed to freedom of expression and communication, to innovation, and to the spirit of entrepreneurship.”
Russia has in the past blocked access to Telegram after it refused to give state security services access to private conversations, and that move prompted large street protests in Moscow in 2018. Additionally, some Russian lawmakers are now accusing France of censorship.
…
Snakehead fish: The invasive species disaster that wasn’t
Invasive plants and animals disrupt food supplies, carry diseases and cause an estimated $423 billion in damage every year around the world. When an Asian fish called the snakehead invaded waterways near Washington, experts warned it might devour the competition and upset of the ecosystem. But, as VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports, that’s not what ended up happening. VOA footage by Adam Greenbaum.
…
Telegram boss’ lawyer dismisses probe against Durov as absurd
PARIS — A lawyer for Telegram boss Pavel Durov, who is being investigated in France, said it was “totally absurd” to suggest the head of a social network was responsible for any criminal acts committed on the platform, French media said.
A French judge put Durov under formal investigation on Wednesday, saying he was suspected of complicity in running an online platform that allows illicit transactions, images of child sex abuse and drug trafficking. He is also being investigated for alleged money laundering and the refusal to cooperate with judicial authorities.
Durov, who spent four days in police custody following his arrest on Saturday at an airport near Paris, was granted bail on condition he pays $5.6 million, reports twice a week to police and does not leave French territory.
His arrest has fueled debate on where freedom of speech ends and enforcement of the law begins, and to what extent tech companies should be held responsible for social media content. Telegram is used by close to a billion people.
“It’s totally absurd to think that the head of a social network could be involved in criminal acts that do not concern him, either directly or indirectly,” lawyer David-Olivier Kaminski, who is representing Durov in France, said in comments to reporters carried by several local media outlets.
“Telegram fully abides with European rules on digital,” he was quoted as saying.
Being placed under formal investigation in France does not imply guilt or necessarily lead to trial, but indicates judges consider there is enough evidence to proceed with the probe. Investigations can last years before being sent to trial or shelved.
Kaminski did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who is known to be an avid user of Telegram, said earlier this week that Durov’s arrest was “in no way a political decision” and that the probe had been decided by judicial authorities, not by the government.
Macron had lunch with Durov in 2018 as part of a series of meetings with tech entrepreneurs, a source close to the president said, and Durov was granted French citizenship in 2021 under a rare procedure for high-profile individuals.
…
French authorities issue preliminary charges against Telegram messaging app CEO
PARIS — French authorities handed preliminary charges to Telegram CEO Pavel Durov on Wednesday for allowing alleged criminal activity on his messaging app and barred him from leaving France pending further investigation.
Both free-speech advocates and authoritarian governments have spoken out in Durov’s defense since his weekend arrest. The case has also called attention to the challenges of policing illegal activity online, and to the Russian-born Durov’s own unusual biography and multiple passports.
Durov was detained on Saturday at Le Bourget airport outside Paris as part of a sweeping investigation opened earlier this year and released earlier Wednesday after four days of questioning. Investigative judges filed preliminary charges Wednesday night and ordered him to pay 5 million euros bail and to report to a police station twice a week, according to a statement from the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Allegations against Durov, who is also a French citizen, include that his platform is being used for child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking, and that Telegram refused to share information or documents with investigators when required by law.
The first preliminary charge against him was for ”complicity in managing an online platform to allow illicit transactions by an organized group,” a crime that can lead to sentences of up to 10 years in prison and 500,000 euro fine, the prosecutor’s office said.
Preliminary charges under French law mean magistrates have strong reason to believe a crime was committed but allow more time for further investigation.
David-Olivier Kaminski, a lawyer for Durov, was quoted by French media as saying “it’s totally absurd to think that the person in charge of a social network could be implicated in criminal acts that don’t concern him, directly or indirectly.”
Prosecutors said that Durov is, “at this stage, the only person implicated in this case.” They did not exclude the possibility that other people are being investigated but declined to comment on other possible arrest warrants. Any other arrest warrant would be revealed only if the target of such a warrant is detained and informed of their rights, prosecutors said in a statement to the AP.
French authorities opened a preliminary investigation in February in response to ”the near total absence of a response by Telegram to judicial requests” for data for pursuing suspects, notably those accused of crimes against children, the prosecutor’s office said.
Durov’s arrest in France has caused outrage in Russia, with some government officials calling it politically motivated and proof of the West’s double standard on freedom of speech. The outcry has raised eyebrows among Kremlin critics because in 2018, Russian authorities themselves tried to block the Telegram app but failed, withdrawing the ban in 2020.
In Iran, where Telegram is widely used despite being officially banned after years of protests challenging the country’s Shiite theocracy, Durov’s arrest in France prompted comments from the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei weighed in with veiled praise for France for being “strict” against those who “violate your governance” of the internet.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that Durov’s arrest wasn’t a political move but part of an independent investigation. Macron posted on X that his country “is deeply committed” to freedom of expression but “freedoms are upheld within a legal framework, both on social media and in real life, to protect citizens and respect their fundamental rights.”
In a statement posted on its platform after Durov’s arrest, Telegram said it abides by EU laws, and its moderation is “within industry standards and constantly improving.”
“Almost a billion users globally use Telegram as means of communication and as a source of vital information. We’re awaiting a prompt resolution of this situation,” it said.
In addition to Russia and France, Durov is also a citizen of the United Arab Emirates and the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis.
The UAE Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that it was “closely following the case” and had asked France to provide Durov “with all the necessary consular services in an urgent manner.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he hoped that Durov “has all the necessary opportunities for his legal defense” and added that Moscow stands “ready to provide all necessary assistance and support” to the Telegram CEO as a Russian citizen.
“But the situation is complicated by the fact that he is also a citizen of France,” Peskov said.
Telegram was founded by Durov and his brother after he himself faced pressure from Russian authorities.
In 2013, he sold his stake in VKontakte, a popular Russian social networking site which he launched in 2006.
The company came under pressure during the Russian government’s crackdown following mass pro-democracy protests that rocked Moscow at the end of 2011 and 2012.
Durov had said authorities demanded that the site take down online communities of Russian opposition activists, and later that it hand over personal data of users who took part in the 2013-14 popular uprising in Ukraine, which eventually ousted a pro-Kremlin president.
Durov said in a recent interview that he had turned down these demands and left the country.
The demonstrations prompted Russian authorities to clamp down on the digital space, and Telegram and its pro-privacy stance offered a convenient way for Russians to communicate and share news.
Telegram also continues to be a popular source of news in Ukraine, where both media outlets and officials use it to share information on the war and deliver missile and air raid alerts.
Western governments have often criticized Telegram for a lack of content moderation.
…
China’s summer movie ticket sales nearly halved amid sluggish economy
WASHINGTON — Movie ticket sales in China have generated more than $1.5 billion so far this summer, a little more than half of last year’s record total of $2.89 billion, according to China’s Film Data Information Network, an institution directly under the Central Propaganda Department.
Summer is usually one of three lucrative periods for China’s movie industry, but industry analysts, observers and customers say a slower economy and a lack of creative domestic films are to blame for the decline.
Some would-be moviegoers explained why they are staying home this summer.
One posted on social media: “The impact from last year’s economic downturn officially appeared this year. Everyone thinks 40-80 yuan ($5-$11) per ticket is expensive.”
“Many movies in theaters in July are on streaming services in August,” another posted. “We’d rather watch them at home than go to the theater.”
A moviegoer in Beijing who identified herself as Ms. Yu, told VOA that this year’s film market is sluggish because the themes are plain, and streaming services allow everyone to watch movies at home without spending money.
“Everyone’s life is already miserable,” she said, “so we don’t want to watch sad movies.”
Although the streaming services have become theaters’ biggest competitors, the economic downturn may be the main reason for the ticket sales plunge, said Shenzhen-based film director Zhang, who did not want to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.
“The spending power of young people and parents has decreased,” Zhang told VOA. “One [reason] is that young people don’t date, and parents whose income has been reduced are under great pressure to raise children, so they naturally cut the consumption activities except eating and drinking, not just movies.”
China’s economy has been struggling to stabilize since the pandemic, according to the World Bank, with growth falling to 3% in 2022 before a moderate recovery to 5.2% in 2023. The global lender expects China’s growth rate to drop back below 5% this year, while youth unemployment has surged.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics removed students from its unemployment calculation after China hit a record high 21.3% youth unemployment rate in June 2023, prompting authorities to temporarily suspend publication of the statistic.
Darson Chiu, director-general of the Confederation of Asia-Pacific Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Taiwan, told VOA that China’s controls on film and creativity have also contributed to the lackluster box office figures.
“China has a very strict censorship system,” Chiu said. “Cultural activities need creativity, and it must be bottom-up. But it is obviously a top-down [censorship] mechanism, so it [the Chinese film industry] is not as creative as it is in other more open and free economies.”
Lee Cheng-liang, an assistant professor of communications at National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan, said Chinese cinemas in the summer mainly show domestic movies, which are struggling to find investors.
“The economy is declining; investors are more cautious to minimize risks. So they diversify the movie themes they invest in,” Lee told VOA. “If you focus on the Chinese market, you will not necessarily make money unless you are at the top of the pyramid.”
Director Zhang said the Chinese summer comedies “Successor,” which critiques the Chinese social education system, and “Upstream,” which portrays package deliverers, are movies that do not “empathize with the general public.”
Commercial movies are often condescending, he said, with hypocritically fabricated plots to show the suffering of people at the bottom. “It is actually a very deformed route,” Zhang added.
Other film critics, however, find “Upstream” a great work with increasing favorable audience feedback, which uncovers China’s immense economic problems and the struggle of its army of gig workers.
China’s state Xinhua News agency said “Successor,” grossing nearly 3.2 billion yuan as of Aug 20, accounted for almost 30% of China’s summer box office sales.
Zhang said the more depressed the social and historical period is, the more popular comedy is because the audience wants to feel “dreamy and painless.”
Despite the poor summer box office showing, not all critics are negative about China’s film industry.
“The ticket sales are not good this summer, but it does not mean that their [China’s] movies are bad,” Michael Mai, a film critic based in Taipei, told VOA. “Their audience is hard to please. Why? Because their appetite is too big. They have all kinds of movies.”
Mai noted that there are three major periods in the Chinese movie market: the Lunar New Year, in January and February; the summer season, from June to August; and the weeklong National Day season from Oct. 1.
Movie ticket sales always have seasonal ups and downs, Mai said, so people should be focusing more on long-term trends.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
…
Second elephant calf in 2 weeks is born at California zoo
FRESNO, Calif. — The second elephant calf in two weeks has been born at a California zoo.
African elephant Amahle gave birth early Monday morning, according to the Fresno Chaffee Zoo. The event came 10 days after Amahle’s mother, Nolwazi, gave birth to another male calf.
The new additions are the first elephants born at the zoo, about 240 kilometers southeast of San Francisco, which has embarked on a program to breed elephants in the hope that they can be seen by zoogoers in years to come.
“To have two healthy calves is a historic milestone,” Jon Forrest Dohlin, the zoo’s chief executive, said in a statement Tuesday. “We cannot wait for the public to see the new additions to our herd and share in our excitement.”
The elephants and their calves will continue to be monitored behind the scenes for now, Dohlin said. While the zoo expanded its exhibit in anticipation of growing its herd, some animal activists have opposed the breeding program, saying elephants shouldn’t be in zoos because of their complex needs.
In 2022, the zoo brought in male elephant Mabu hoping he’d breed with the two females. The future of elephants — which have relatively few offspring and a 22-month gestation period — in zoos hinges largely on breeding.
…