War casts shadow over Lebanon’s ancient Baalbek

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Baalbek, Lebanon — Since war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah, the famed Palmyra Hotel in east Lebanon’s Baalbek has been without visitors, but long-time employee Rabih Salika refuses to leave — even as bombs drop nearby.

The hotel, which was built in 1874, once welcomed renowned guests including former French President Charles de Gaulle and American singer Nina Simone.

Overlooking a large archaeological complex encompassing the ruins of an ancient Roman town, the Palmyra has kept its doors open through several conflicts and years of economic collapse.

“This hotel hasn’t closed its doors for 150 years,” Salika said, explaining that it welcomed guests at the height of Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war and during Israel’s last war with Hezbollah in 2006.

The 45-year-old has worked there for more than half his life and says he will not abandon it now.

“I’m very attached to this place,” he said, adding that the hotel’s vast, desolate halls leave “a huge pang in my heart.”

He spends his days dusting decaying furniture and antique mirrors. He clears glass shards from windows shattered by strikes.

Baalbek, known as the ‘City of the Sun’ in ancient times, is home to one of the world’s largest complex of Roman temples — designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

But the latest Israel-Hezbollah war has cast a pall over the eastern city, home to an estimated 250,000 people before the war.

Life at a standstill

After a year of cross-border clashes with Hezbollah, Israel last month ramped-up strikes on the group’s strongholds, including parts of Baalbek.

Only about 40 percent of Baalbek’s residents remain in the city, local officials say, mainly crammed into the city’s few Sunni-majority districts.

On October 6, Israeli strikes fell hundreds of meters (yards) away from the Roman columns that bring tourists to the city and the Palmyra hotel.

UNESCO told AFP it was “closely following the impact of the ongoing crisis in Lebanon on the cultural heritage sites.”

More than a month into the war, a handful of Baalbek’s shops remain open, albeit for short periods of time.

“The market is almost always closed. It opens for one hour a day, and sometimes not at all,” said Baalbek mayor Mustafa al-Shall.

Residents shop for groceries quickly in the morning, rarely venturing out after sundown.

They try “not to linger on the streets fearing an air strike could hit at any moment,” he said.

Last year, nearly 70,000 tourists and 100,000 Lebanese visited Baalbek. But the city has only attracted five percent of those figures so far this year, the mayor said.

Even before the war, local authorities in Baalbek were struggling to provide public services due to a five-year economic crisis.

Now municipality employees are mainly working to clear the rubble from the streets and provide assistance to shelters housing the displaced.

A Baalbek hospital was put out of service by a recent Israeli strike, leaving only five other facilities still fully functioning, Shall said.

‘No one’

Baalbek resident Hussein al-Jammal said the war has turned his life upside down.

“The streets were full of life, the citadel was welcoming visitors, restaurants were open, and the markets were crowded,” the 37-year-old social worker said.

“Now, there is no one.”

His young children and his wife have fled the fighting, but he said he had a duty to stay behind and help those in need.

“I work in the humanitarian field, I cannot leave, even if everyone leaves,” he said.

Only four homes in his neighborhood are still inhabited, he said, mostly by vulnerable elderly people.

“I pay them a visit every morning to see what they need,” he said, but “it’s hard to be away from your family.”

Rasha al-Rifai, 45, provides psychological support to women facing gender-based violence.

But in the month since the war began, she has lost contact with many.

“Before the war… we didn’t worry about anything,” said Rifai, who lives with her elderly parents.

“Now everything has changed, we work remotely, we don’t see anyone, most of the people I know have left.”

“In the 2006 war we were displaced several times, it was a very difficult experience, we don’t want this to happen again,” she said.

“We will stay here as long as it is bearable.”
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Thousands turn out for Thai royal barge pageantry 

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Bangkok — Thousands of well-wishers lined the banks of Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River Sunday to watch King Maha Vajiralongkorn ride a glittering royal barge procession to mark his 72nd birthday.

A flotilla of 52 ornately decorated boats, paddled by more than 2,000 oarsmen decked out in scarlet and gold, carried the king and Queen Suthida in formation through the heart of the Thai capital to a Buddhist ceremony at Wat Arun, the city’s ancient Temple of Dawn.

The king, officially regarded as semi-divine but who came in for unprecedented criticism in street protests in 2020 and 2021, took his place on a century-old royal barge known as the “Golden Swan” to deliver robes to monks in a ceremony marking the end of Buddhist Lent.

Royal barge processions date back hundreds of years, but are held rarely, saved for the most significant occasions — most recently, the king’s coronation in 2019.

During the 70-year reign of the previous king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, only 16 barge processions were held.

King Vajiralongkorn turned 72 in July, completing his “sixth cycle” in the 12-year astrological calendar — a milestone regarded by Thais as important and auspicious.

Normally the intricately ornamented barges — their prows decorated with garudas, nagas and other mythical creatures from Buddhist and Hindu mythology — are kept in a museum.

But on days of national importance, navy oarsmen in sarongs, red tunics and traditional hats propel them through the water to the banging of drums, as perfectly coordinated golden paddles break the waters.

Only four of the barges are actually deemed “royal,” while the others are officially royal escort vessels.

The barge procession dates back to Thailand’s 1350-1767 Ayutthaya period. When Bangkok was built more than 250 years ago, kings used the boats to travel through the capital’s network of canals.

As Thailand modernized, the barges fell out of use, but king Bhumibol revived the tradition in 1957 to celebrate the 25th century of the Buddhist era.
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NASA astronaut released from hospital after return from space station

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washington — A NASA astronaut who was hospitalized upon return from the International Space Station for an unspecified medical condition was released Saturday in “good health,” the U.S. space agency said. 

The four-member Crew-8 mission splashed down off the coast of Florida early Friday after nearly eight months aboard the orbital laboratory.   

NASA did not reveal which of the astronauts was hospitalized nor the reason, citing medical privacy.   

However, it said in a blog post that the crew member has returned to the Johnson Space Center in Houston “in good health and will resume normal post-flight reconditioning with other crew members.”   

On its way back to Earth, the SpaceX Dragon executed a normal re-entry and splashdown, and recovery of the crew and spacecraft was without incident, NASA said.   

But during routine medical assessments on the recovery ship, an “additional evaluation of the crew members was requested out of an abundance of caution,” it added, without elaborating. 

NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin were all flown to Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola.   

Three were subsequently released, while one remained at the hospital “under observation as a precautionary measure.” 
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Major Vatican meeting sidelines talks of women priests, deacons

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Rome — A major Vatican meeting gathering clerics and laity across the globe to discuss the future of the Catholic Church closes this weekend, thwarting discussion of women becoming priests or deacons in the world’s largest Christian denomination.

But that didn’t stop a half-dozen Catholic women from “ordination” in a secret ceremony in Rome that was not authorized by the Vatican.

Jesuit Father Allan Deck, a professor at the Los Angeles-based Loyola Marymount University, told VOA that the Catholic Church under Pope Francis’ leadership recognizes the need for adaptability to realize its spiritual mission in the world at this time of significant change.

“Not the first time that the church in its 2,000-year history has experienced very significant shifts,” he said. “The church, in order to accomplish its mission, has to engage people, circumstances and times. And it has to be capable of development, while at the same time remaining faithful to its mission and to the revelation that has been communicated to it. This is hard. This is what’s happening.”

While Catholic women participated over the past month in what many consider the most significant Catholic gathering since the 1960s — called the “synod on synodality” — many of their number were let down by a Vatican decision to sideline talk of the ordination of female priests or deacons, instead referring the matter to a future study group.

Bridget Mary Meehan, an American co-founder of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, told VOA that her organization has performed 270 ordinations of women in 14 countries since its creation in 2002.

“We wanted to share with Pope Francis that it is time to build a bridge between the international women priests’ movement and the Vatican,” she said. “We are on the same page as he is about a synodal church. We believe all are called, all are equal and all are co-responsible for the mission of the church — to be the face of Christ in the world in loving and compassionate service. One of these ways is ordained ministry.”

Advocates say women play a huge role in daily Catholic ministries — also called the diakonia — in education, pastoral care and hospitals worldwide. In some places, women are especially active because there are no priests, such as in the Amazon. But often their leadership is not recognized.

Meehan “ordained” six Catholic women from France, Spain and the United States on a barge on Rome’s Tiber River earlier this month to acknowledge their central role in ministry around the world.

“We did it because we felt that it’s time for us, after 22 years of serving the church in the diakonia ministry, to really share the good news that women are being ordained by Catholic communities who want to call them forward to ministry among them,” Meehan said.

“It’s like a renewal of ministry that is already in the midst of the Catholic Church. It’s already occurring,” she said.

Although Pope Francis has appointed more women to top jobs at the Vatican than any of his predecessors, he has ruled out female priests or deacons ministering in the Catholic Church.
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NASA astronaut hospitalized upon return from extended stay in space

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — A NASA astronaut was taken to the hospital for an undisclosed medical issue after returning from a nearly eight-month space station stay extended by Boeing’s capsule trouble and Hurricane Milton, the space agency said Friday.

A SpaceX capsule carrying three Americans and one Russian parachuted before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast after undocking from the International Space Station at midweek. The capsule was hoisted onto the recovery ship where the four astronauts had routine medical checks.

Soon after splashdown, a NASA astronaut had a “medical issue” and the crew was flown to a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, for additional evaluation “out of an abundance of caution,” the space agency said in a statement.

The astronaut, who was not identified, was in stable condition and remained at the hospital as a “precautionary measure,” NASA said.

The space agency said it would not share details about the astronaut’s condition, citing patient privacy.

The other three astronauts were discharged and returned to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

It can take days or even weeks for astronauts to readjust to gravity after living in weightlessness for several months.

The astronauts should have been back two months ago. But their homecoming was stalled by problems with Boeing’s new Starliner astronaut capsule, which came back empty in September because of safety concerns. Then Hurricane Milton interfered, followed by another two weeks of high wind and rough seas.

SpaceX launched the four — NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin — in March. Barratt, the only space veteran going into the mission, acknowledged the support teams back home that had “to replan, retool and kind of redo everything right along with us … and helped us to roll with all those punches.”

Their replacements are the two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own mission went from eight days to eight months, and two astronauts launched by SpaceX four weeks ago. Those four will remain up there until February.

The space station is now back to its normal crew size of seven — four Americans and three Russians — after months of overflow.
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Bassist Lesh, founding member of Grateful Dead, dies at 84 

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los angeles — Phil Lesh, a classically trained violinist and jazz trumpeter who found his true calling reinventing the role of rock bass guitar as a founding member of the Grateful Dead, died Friday at age 84.

Lesh’s death was announced on his Instagram account. He was the oldest and one of the longest-surviving members of the band that came to define the acid rock sound emanating from San Francisco in the 1960s.

Lesh “passed peacefully this morning. He was surrounded by his family and full of love. Phil brought immense joy to everyone around him and leaves behind a legacy of music and love,” the Instagram statement said.

The statement did not cite a cause of death, and attempts to reach representatives for additional details were not immediately successful. Lesh had previously survived bouts of prostate cancer, bladder cancer and a 1998 liver transplant necessitated by the debilitating effects of a hepatitis C infection and years of heavy drinking.

Lesh’s death came two days after MusiCares named the Grateful Dead its Persons of the Year. MusiCares, which helps music professionals needing financial or other kinds of assistance, cited Lesh’s Unbroken Chain Foundation, among other philanthropic initiatives. The Dead will be honored in January at a benefit gala ahead of the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.

Low profile

Although he kept a relatively low public profile, rarely granting interviews or speaking to the audience, fans and fellow band members recognized Lesh as a critical member of the Grateful Dead whose thundering lines on the six-string electric bass provided a brilliant counterpoint to lead guitarist Jerry Garcia’s soaring solos and anchored the band’s famous marathon jams.

“When Phil’s happening, the band’s happening,” Garcia once said.

Drummer Mickey Hart called him the group’s intellectual who brought a classical composer’s mindset and skills to a five-chord rock ‘n’ roll band.

Lesh credited Garcia with teaching him to play the bass in the unorthodox lead-guitar style that he would become famous for, mixing thundering arpeggios with snippets of spontaneously composed orchestral passages.

Fellow bass player Rob Wasserman once said Lesh’s style set him apart from every other bassist he knew of. While most others were content to keep time and take the occasional solo, Wasserman said Lesh was both good enough and confident enough to lead his fellow musicians through a song’s melody.

“He happens to play bass but he’s more like a horn player, doing all those arpeggios — and he has that counterpoint going all the time,” he said.

Lesh began his long musical odyssey as a classically trained violinist, starting with lessons in third grade. He took up the trumpet at 14, eventually earning the second chair in California’s Oakland Symphony Orchestra while still in his teens.

But he had largely put both instruments aside and was driving a mail truck and working as a sound engineer for a small radio station in 1965 when Garcia recruited him to play bass in a fledgling rock band called the Warlocks.

Armed with a cheap four-string instrument his girlfriend bought him, Lesh sat down for a seven-hour lesson with Garcia, following the latter’s advice that he tune his instrument’s strings an octave lower than the four bottom strings on Garcia’s guitar. Then Garcia turned him loose, allowing Lesh to develop the spontaneous style of playing that he would embrace for the rest of his life.

Traded leads

Lesh and Garcia would frequently exchange leads, often spontaneously, while the band as a whole would frequently break into long experimental, jazz-influenced jams during concerts. The result was that even well-known Grateful Dead songs like “Truckin’ ” or “Sugar Magnolia” rarely sounded the same two performances in a row, something that would inspire loyal fans to attend show after show.

“It’s always fluid. We just pretty much figure it out on the fly,” Lesh said, chuckling, during a rare 2009 interview with The Associated Press. “You can’t set those things in stone in the rehearsal room.”

Phillip Chapman Lesh was born on March 15, 1940, in Berkeley, California, the only child of Frank Lesh, an office equipment repairman, and his wife, Barbara.

He would say in later years that his love of music came from listening to broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic on his grandmother’s radio. One of his earliest memories was hearing the great German composer Bruno Walter lead that orchestra through Brahms’ First Symphony.

Musical influences he often cited were not rock musicians but composers like Bach and Edgard Varese, as well as jazz greats like John Coltrane and Miles Davis.

Lesh had gravitated from classical music to cool jazz by the time he arrived at the College of San Mateo, eventually becoming first trumpet player in the school’s big band and a composer of several orchestral pieces the group performed.

But he set the trumpet aside after college, concluding he didn’t have the lung power to become an elite player.

Soon after he took up the bass, the Warlocks renamed themselves the Grateful Dead and Lesh began captivating audiences with his dexterity. Crowds gathered in what came to be known as “The Phil Zone” directly in front of his position onstage.

Although he was never a prolific songwriter, Lesh also composed music for the band and sometimes sang some of its most beloved songs. Among them were the upbeat country rocker “Pride of Cucamonga,” the jazz-influenced “Unbroken Chain” and the ethereally beautiful “Box of Rain.”

Lesh composed the latter on guitar as a gift for his dying father, and he recalled that Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, upon hearing the instrumental recording, approached him the next day with a lyric sheet. On that sheet, he said, were “some of the most moving and heartfelt lyrics I’ve ever had the good fortune to sing.”

The band often closed its concerts with the song.

Later tours

After the group’s dissolution following Garcia’s 1995 death, Lesh often skipped joining the other surviving members when they got together to perform.

He did take part in a 2009 Grateful Dead tour and again in 2015 for a handful of “Fare Thee Well” concerts marking both the band’s 50th anniversary and what Lesh said would be the last time he would play with the others.

He did continue to play frequently, however, with a rotating cast of musicians he called Phil Lesh and Friends.

In later years he usually held those performances at Terrapin Crossroads, a restaurant and nightclub he opened near his Northern California home in 2012, which was named after the Grateful Dead song and album “Terrapin Station.”

Lesh is survived by his wife, Jill, and sons Brian and Grahame.
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Climate finance to take center stage at COP29

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BERLIN, Germany — Close to 200 countries are scheduled to negotiate a new climate finance target for the Global South at the U.N. Climate Change Conference, or COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November.  

Dubbed the “Finance COP,” next month’s conference is expected to see focused discussions on a New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance, or NCQG. It defines a new target for monetary support from historic emitters – mostly countries in the Global North – to address climate needs in poorer countries.    

Surging climate needs  

In 2009, countries including the United States and the European Union agreed to contribute $100 billion collectively each year by 2020, but an OECD report showed that they struggled to meet that goal over the years. Worse still, much of the climate finance came in the form of loans, which critics say have piled more pressure on developing countries already drowning in debt.    

The new negotiations come after a spate of extreme weather conditions intensified by human-caused climate change. July, for instance, witnessed the three hottest days ever recorded. Scientists said in an article on BioScience that as fossil fuel emissions reached an all-time high, the Earth is on track for 2.7 degrees Celsius warming by 2100, far above the 1.5 degrees Celsius target established in the 2015 Paris Agreement.   

To combat the burgeoning crisis, developing countries will now need more than $100 billion a year, with estimates ranging up to $6 trillion by 2030. Even that does not sufficiently cover measures to adapt to already inevitable climate change, according to a 2021 U.N. report. 

Conference host Azerbaijan in July launched the Climate Finance Action Fund with an initial goal of raising $1 billion from fossil-fuel producing countries and companies. 

Nations are likely to reach a compromise at the lower end of a NCQG goal, according to Irene Monasterolo, professor of climate finance at the Utrecht University. 

“These results of the negotiations may not be able to address the current need for climate finance in low-income countries, which are massively affected already now by climate risk,” Monasterolo told VOA. “The focus so far has been mostly on mitigation [reducing emissions] projects and measures, while adaptation investments are lagging behind.”   

Adaptation finance   

While adaptation finance has gone up over the years, mitigation still accounts for the majority of current climate finance, the OECD report revealed. Monasterolo said the scale of adaptation finance ultimately depends on mitigation efforts.    

“We don’t see bold plans for mitigation that would be needed to achieve the 1.5 degrees Celsius target, including the Global North. We have instead some issues of policy reversal and some major economies and polluting countries like the U.S. stepping back and in Europe,” she added.    

“The science is clear. To limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times, we need to drop production, extraction, use of fossil fuels and related carbon activities and focus on renewables, and low-carbon activities should go up. But that’s not happening. In the latest geopolitical crisis, we increased our dependency on fossil fuels.”  

The wars in the Middle East and Russia have put energy security at risk, according to the International Energy Agency. While a record high level of clean energy came online last year, emissions from the energy sector also broke records.    

Another reason for low adaptation finance, Monasterolo said, is the complexity of assessing climate risks. “We need to work on how to integrate forward-looking climate risk into investors and financial authorities’ models. Market-based approaches based on past data are a poor proxy of what could happen in the near future with ongoing climate change.”   

Loss and damage fund   

At COP28 in Dubai last year, countries agreed to set up a voluntary fund for historic emitters to pay for the damage caused by climate disasters in vulnerable developing countries. Western countries also called for large emitters like China to contribute. Negotiators are expected to continue the discussion at COP29.    

For now, it remains unclear whether the loss and damage fund will be included in the new NCQG, according to Karoliina Hurri, researcher at the Center on Climate Politics and Security at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. 

The fund “is defined as voluntary, so it’s not based on the same categorization of developed and developing countries. … Some developed countries argue that the loss and damage fund is not part of the mandate and should be negotiated separately from this.”  

Looming NDCs   

As countries are slated to declare new and more ambitious national green goals by February 2025, COP29 is expected to be a big push.   

“I am afraid we won’t see ambitious enough NDCs [national determined contributions], but I think this is really important at this COP, especially the discussion of how to ensure the [recommended] outcomes of last year’s Global Stocktake, and the discussion about transitioning away from fossil fuels,” Hurri explained. 

Hurri said many countries said they would lead by example to announce goals aligned with the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming goal. “But at the same time, nations can decide for themselves what the alignment means. This clarifies how difficult it is to reach the NDC.”   

At COP28, countries signed a historic deal to start transitioning away from polluting fossil fuels. Hurri said, however, it remains to be seen how the phases translate into actions. “Do we see, for example, schedules of roadmaps on how this process is planned on the national level?”   

Pivotal US election   

The U.S. election results could have a large impact on the implementation of potential negotiation results, including cooperation measures with the world’s biggest emitting nation, China, according to Hurri. 

“I have not seen very detailed climate policy arguments from either of the candidates, although we know that they have very different views on climate change. … We know what happened last time during President [Donald] Trump’s term that the U.S. decreased financial contribution for climate,” she said.    

COP29 will also mark the first cooperation talks between the new envoys from the United States and China — John Podesta and Liu Zhenmin. They had a working group meeting in Beijing in early September, in which they agreed to host a summit on methane and non-carbon greenhouse gases during the climate conference.   

“While the U.S. election might not influence the cooperation at this year’s COP, the election outcome can have an influence on the credibility of their cooperation in the long term on a high level,” Hurri said.   
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Four astronauts return to Earth after being delayed by Boeing’s capsule trouble, Hurricane Milton

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Four astronauts returned to Earth on Friday after a nearly eight-month space station stay extended by Boeing’s capsule trouble and Hurricane Milton.

A SpaceX capsule carrying the crew parachuted before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast after undocking from the International Space Station mid-week.

The three Americans and one Russian should have been back two months ago. But their homecoming was stalled by problems with Boeing’s new Starliner astronaut capsule, which came back empty in September because of safety concerns. Then Hurricane Milton interfered, followed by another two weeks of high wind and rough seas.

SpaceX launched the four — NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin — in March. Barratt, the only space veteran going into the mission, acknowledged the support teams back home that had “to replan, retool and kind of redo everything right along with us … and helped us to roll with all those punches.”

Their replacements are the two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own mission went from eight days to eight months, and two astronauts launched by SpaceX four weeks ago. Those four will remain up there until February.

The space station is now back to its normal crew size of seven — four Americans and three Russians — after months of overflow.
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How Afghan, Pakistani clerics battle polio vaccine misinformation

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Maulana Tayyab Qureshi, the top cleric in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, has seen up close the devastating effects of polio.

Two of his own kin were once paralyzed, victims of a scourge that has been vanquished worldwide yet refuses to go away from Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan.

“Had their parents not neglected [to have their children vaccinated], their children wouldn’t be disabled today,” Qureshi said of his relatives.

As the chief khateeb, or Friday prayer leader, of the northwestern province, Qureshi preaches this message at every opportunity — Friday sermons at his 17th century Mahabat Khan Mosque in Peshawar, Eid prayers when upward of 40,000 people congregate, meetings with village elders.

“I’m very clear cut: I tell them, it’s free. It doesn’t cost you anything. Why don’t you take it seriously?” Qureshi said in an interview with VOA.

Qureshi is not the only Pakistani cleric advocating vaccination. Several renowned scholars have issued decrees in its support, with a notable shift in attitudes. Vaccine hesitancy, an intractable obstacle to eradicating polio, has waned, he said.

A once infamous bastion of vaccine resistance outside Peshawar has now embraced immunization.

“The fatwas have had a great impact,” Qureshi said.

Yet, as Pakistan and Afghanistan seek to eradicate polio, misinformation remains a key hurdle. While immunization rates are generally high in both countries, pockets of resistance persist along the border, jeopardizing eradication efforts.

To counter vaccine misinformation, public health officials increasingly have turned to influential clerics like Qureshi. As the trusted voices within their communities, these religious leaders play a crucial role in dispelling harmful myths and misconceptions about vaccines, experts say.

“The best way to fight through this is empowering trusted voices in communities to push back on it and provide real information,” said Kai Ruggeri, a Columbia University health policy professor who has written about vaccine disinformation.

The stakes are high. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only countries where polio remains endemic. And as World Polio Day arrives this year, there are renewed concerns over their ability to eliminate the disease.

The neighboring countries were once on the brink of going polio-free. But persistent insecurity coupled with cross-border movements has fueled a resurgence.

Pakistan has recorded 40 cases and Afghanistan at least 20, this year. This marks a significant increase from the six cases each reported last year.

A setback came last month when more than 1 million Pakistani children missed vaccinations, and Afghanistan’s Taliban briefly suspended immunization campaigns.

Oliver Rosenbauer, a spokesman for WHO’s polio eradication program in Geneva, noted that misinformation is not the only obstacle to eliminating polio; a lack of infrastructure, insecurity and population density also contribute.

“The important point is the polio virus doesn’t care why a child is not vaccinated,” Rosenbauer said in an interview. “It’s very, very good at finding that unvaccinated child.”

Polio, a crippling disease that can lead to paralysis and death, has long been eradicated globally thanks to universal immunization efforts. For most people around the world, polio is a distant memory or even a relic of history.

But in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the disease remains a stark reality despite significant progress in recent decades. Its scars are visible to those who look, Rosenbauer said.

“It’s a disease that parents still see,” he said. “If you walk around Karachi or Kabul, you’ll still see people with polio on the streets.”

This “respect for the disease” explains why vaccine hesitancy remains around 1.5% in Afghanistan and Pakistan, significantly lower than many Western countries.

Yet in densely populated areas, such as the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, lingering resistance can prevent efforts to eradicate the virus.

Leading the charge against the vaccine, militants on both sides of the border have waged violent attacks on polio workers and their escorts. Their claim that the vaccine program violates Islamic law and is used for surveillance has fueled resistance.

Hundreds have been killed in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In January, at least five policemen were killed and more than a dozen injured in a major attack on polio teams and security personnel in northwestern Pakistan.

According to the Emergency Operations Center in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, militants have carried out 21 attacks against polio teams and security escorts in Pakistan this year.

Mainstream clerics have pushed back.

In 2019, prominent Islamic scholars from Afghanistan and Pakistan declared the polio vaccine safe and Sharia-compliant. They stressed the “moral duty” of parents to have their children vaccinated.

In 2022, the al-Azhar University, the Sunni Muslim world’s most prestigious institution of religious education, warned against decrees banning the polio vaccine in Pakistan.

Last month, nearly 200 renowned religious scholars in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa declared support for polio vaccination.

Qureshi, the chief khateeb of KP, was among them.

The scholars “took a strong stand not only regarding the polio vaccine but all health measures by the ministry of health,” Qureshi said.

Across the border, Taliban health officials are waging their own campaign against vaccine misinformation even as attacks on health workers, often claimed by ISIS, have persisted.

Ehsanul Haq Hanafi, a cleric and senior official in the health ministry, understands the clergy’s influence in Afghan society.

“People listen to the ulema and accept what they say,” Hanafi said in an interview with VOA.

Among the myriad misconceptions about the vaccine, he said, some Afghans believe it corrupts morals or causes sterility. Others think it can accelerate puberty, he said.

“This is unscientific and baseless disinformation,” he said.

To combat this, Hanafi travels around the country to meet with locals and mullahs to convince the skeptics. While some clerics remain opposed, most accept the vaccine once its benefits are explained, he said.

“We can’t convince 100% of the people, but 80% agree with us and have their children vaccinated,” Hanafi said.

VOA’s Ihsan M. Khan contributed to this article.
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US military, intelligence agencies ordered to embrace AI

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washington — The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have new marching orders — to more quickly embrace and deploy artificial intelligence as a matter of national security.

U.S. President Joe Biden signed the directive, part of a new national security memorandum, on Thursday. The goal is to make sure the United States remains a leader in AI technology while also aiming to prevent the country from falling victim to AI tools wielded by adversaries like China.

The memo, which calls AI “an era-defining technology,” also lays out guidelines that the White House says are designed to prevent the use of AI to harm civil liberties or human rights.

The new rules will “ensure that our national security agencies are adopting these technologies in ways that align with our values,” a senior administration official told reporters, speaking about the memo on the condition of anonymity before its official release.

The official added that a failure to more quickly adopt AI “could put us at risk of a strategic surprise by our rivals.”

“Because countries like China recognize similar opportunities to modernize and revolutionize their own military and intelligence capabilities using artificial intelligence, it’s particularly imperative that we accelerate our national security community’s adoption and use of cutting-edge AI,” the official said.

But some civil liberties advocates are raising concerns that the new guidelines lack sufficient safeguards.

“Despite acknowledging the considerable risks of AI, this policy does not go nearly far enough to protect us from dangerous and unaccountable AI systems,” according to a statement from the American Civil Liberties Union’s Patrick Toomey.

“National security agencies must not be left to police themselves as they increasingly subject people in the United States to powerful new technologies,” said Toomey, who serves as deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project.

The new guidelines build on an executive order issued last year that directed all U.S. government agencies to craft policies for how they intend to use AI.

They also seek to address issues that could hamper Washington’s ability to more quickly incorporate AI into national security systems.

Provisions outlined in the memo call for a range of actions to protect the supply chains that produce advanced computer chips critical for AI systems. It also calls for additional actions to combat economic espionage that would allow U.S. adversaries or non-U.S. companies from stealing critical innovations.

“We have to get this right, because there is probably no other technology that will be more critical to our national security in the years ahead,” said White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, addressing an audience at the National Defense University in Washington on Thursday.

“The stakes are high,” he said. “If we don’t act more intentionally to seize our advantages, if we don’t deploy AI more quickly and more comprehensively to strengthen our national security, we risk squandering our hard-earned lead.

“We could have the best team but lose because we didn’t put it on the field,” he added.

Although the memo prioritizes the implementation of AI technologies to safeguard U.S. interests, it also directs officials to work with allies and others to create a stable framework for use of AI technologies across the globe.

“A big part of the national security memorandum is actually setting out some basic principles,” Sullivan said, citing ongoing talks with the G-7 and AI-related resolutions at the United Nations.

“We need to ensure that people around the world are able to seize the benefits and mitigate the risks,” he said.
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AI decodes oinks and grunts to keep pigs happy in Danish study

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VIPPEROD, Denmark — European scientists have developed an artificial intelligence algorithm capable of interpreting pig sounds, aiming to create a tool that can help farmers improve animal welfare.

The algorithm could potentially alert farmers to negative emotions in pigs, thereby improving their well-being, according to Elodie Mandel-Briefer, a behavioral biologist at University of Copenhagen who is co-leading the study.

The scientists, from universities in Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, France, Norway and the Czech Republic, used thousands of recorded pig sounds in different scenarios, including play, isolation and competition for food, to find that grunts, oinks, and squeals reveal positive or negative emotions.

While many farmers already have a good understanding of the well-being of their animals by watching them in the pig pen, existing tools mostly measure their physical condition, said Mandel-Briefer.

“Emotions of animals are central to their welfare, but we don’t measure it much on farms,” she said.

The algorithm demonstrated that pigs kept in outdoor, free-range or organic farms with the ability to roam and dig in the dirt produced fewer stress calls than conventionally raised pigs. The researchers believe that this method, once fully developed, could also be used to label farms, helping consumers make informed choices.

“Once we have the tool working, farmers can have an app on their phone that can translate what their pigs are saying in terms of emotions,” Mandel-Briefer said.

Short grunts typically indicate positive emotions, while long grunts often signal discomfort, such as when pigs push each other by the trough. High-frequency sounds like screams or squeals usually mean the pigs are stressed, for instance, when they are in pain, fight, or are separated from each other.

The scientists used these findings to create an algorithm that employs AI.

“Artificial intelligence really helps us to both process the huge amount of sounds that we get, but also to classify them automatically,” Mandel-Briefer said.
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China space plan highlights commitment to space exploration, analysts say

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Chinese officials recently released a 25-year space exploration plan that details five major scientific themes and 17 priority areas for scientific breakthroughs with one goal: to make China a world leader in space by 2050 and a key competitor with the U.S. in space, for decades to come.

Last week, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the China National Space Administration, and the China Manned Space Agency jointly released a space exploration plan for 2024 through 2050.

It includes searching for extraterrestrial life, exploring Mars, Venus, and Jupiter, sending space crews to the moon and building an international lunar research station by 2025.

Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the plan highlights China’s long-term commitment and answers some lingering questions as well.

“I think a lot of experts have wondered if China would continue to invest in space, particularly in science and exploration, given a lot of economic uncertainties in China … but this is a sign that they’re committed,” Swope said.

The plan reinforces a “commitment to really look at space science and exploration in the long term and not just short term,” he added.

The plan outlines Beijing’s goal to send astronauts to the moon by 2030, obtain and retrieve the first samples from Mars and successfully complete a mission to the Jupiter system in the next few years. It also outlines three phases of development, each with specific goals in terms of space exploration and key scientific discoveries.

The extensive plan is not only a statement that Beijing can compete with the U.S. in high-tech industries, it is also a way of boosting national pride, analysts say. 

“Space in particular has a huge public awareness, public pride,” says Nicholas Eftimiades, a retired senior intelligence officer and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank. “It emboldens the Chinese people, gives them a strong sense of nationalism and superiority, and that’s what the main focus of the Bejing government is.”

 

Swope agrees.

“I think it’s [China’s long-term space plan] a manifestation of China’s interest and desire from a national prestige and honor standpoint to really show that it’s a player on the international stage up there with the United States,” he said.

Antonia Hmaidi, a senior analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, told VOA in an email response that, “China’s space focus goes back to the 1960,” and that “China has also been very successful at meeting its own goals and timelines.”

In recent years China has carried out several successful space science missions including Chang’e-4, which marked the world’s first soft landing and roving on the far side of the moon, Change’e-5, a mission that returned a sample from the moon back to Beijing for the first time, and Tianwen-1, a space mission that resulted in Chinese spacecraft leaving imprints on Mars. 

 

In addition, to these space missions, Bejing has implemented several programs aimed at increasing scientific discovery relating to space, particularly through the launch of several space satellites. 

Since 2011, China has developed and launched scientific satellites including Dark Matter Particle Explorer, Quantum Experiments at Space Scale, Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory, and the Einstein Probe.

While China continues to make progress with space exploration and scientific discovery, according to Swope, there is still a way to go before it catches up to the United States.

“China is undeniably the number 2 space power in the world today, behind the United States,” he said. “The United States is still by far the most important in a lot of measures and metrics, including in science and exploration.”

Eftimiades said one key reason the United States has maintained its lead in the space race is the success of Washington’s private, commercial aerospace companies.

 

“The U.S. private industry has got the jump on China,” Eftimiades said. “There’s no type of industrial control, industrial plan. In fact, Congress and administration shy away from that completely.”

Unlike the United States, large space entities in China are often state-owned, such as the China Aerospace Cooperation, Eftimiades said.

He adds that one advantage of China’s space entities being state-owned is the ability for the Chinese government to “direct their industries toward specific objectives.” At the same time, having bureaucracy involved with state-owned enterprises leads to less “cutting-edge technology.”

This year, China has focused on growing its space presence relative to the U.S. by conducting more orbital launches. 

Beijing planned to conduct 100 orbital launches this year, according to the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, which was to conduct 70 of them. However, as of October 15, China had completed 48 orbital launches.

Last week, SpaceX announced it had launched its 100th rocket of the year and had another liftoff just hours later. The private company is aiming for 148 launches this year.

Earlier this year the U.S. Department of Defense implemented its first Commercial Space Integration Strategy, which outlined the department’s efforts to take technologies produced in the private sector and apply their uses for U.S. national security purposes.

In a statement released relating to the U.S. strategic plan, the Department of Defense explained its strategy to work closely with private and commercial sector space companies that are known to be innovative and have scalable production.

According to the statement, officials say “the strategy is based on the premise that the commercial space sector’s innovative capabilities, scalable production and rapid technology refresh rates provide pathways to enhance the resilience of DOD space capabilities and strengthen deterrence.”

Many space technologies have military applications, Swope said.

 

“A lot of things that are done in space have a dual use, so [space technologies] may be primarily used for scientific purposes, but also could be used to design and build and test some type of weapons technology,” Swope said.

Hmaidi says China’s newest space plan stands out for what it doesn’t have.

“The most interesting and striking part about China’s newest space plan to me was the narrow focus on basic science over military goals,” she told VOA in an email. “However, we know from open-source research that China is also very active in military space development.”

“This plan contains only one part of China’s space planning, namely the part that is unlikely to have direct military utility, while not mentioning other missions with direct military utility like its low-earth orbit internet program,” Hmaidi explained.
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Chinese official urges Apple to continue ‘deepening’ presence in China

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A top Chinese official has urged tech giant Apple to deepen its presence and investment in innovation in the world’s second largest economy at a time when supply chains and companies are shifting production and operations away from China.

As U.S.-China geopolitical tensions simmer and tech competition between Beijing and Western countries intensifies, foreign investment in China shrunk in 2023 to its lowest level in three decades, according to government statistics.

The United States has banned the export of advanced technology to China and Beijing’s crackdown on spying in the name of national security concerns has spooked investors.

On Wednesday, Jin Zhuanglong – China’s Minister for Industry and Information Technology – told Apple CEO Tim Cook he hoped that, “Apple will continue to deepen its presence in the Chinese market,” urging Cook to “increase investment in innovation, grow alongside Chinese firms, and share in the dividends of high-quality investment,” according to a ministry statement.

At the meeting Jin also discussed “Apple’s development in China, network data security management, (and) cloud services,” according to the statement.

China has the world’s largest market for smartphones, and Apple is a leading competitor. However, increasingly the iPhone producer has lost market share in the country due to an increasing number of local rivals in the smartphone sector.

In the second quarter of this year, AFP reports that Apple ranked sixth among smartphone vendors in China, holding a 16% market share, marking a drop of three positions compared to its ranking during the same period last year, according to analysis firm Canalys.

Jin also repeated a frequent pledge from officials in Beijing that China would strive to provide a “better environment” for global investors and “continue to expand high-level opening up.

Cook’s trip to China was his second of the year. His posts on the X-like Chinese social media platform Weibo showed he visited an Apple store in downtown Beijing, visited an organic farm, and toured ancient neighborhoods with prominent artists such as local photographer Chen Man.

Cook added that he met with students from China’s Agricultural University and Zhejiang University to receive feedback on how iPhones and iPads can help farmers adopt more sustainable practices. 

Some information in this report came from Reuters and AFP.
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Snakebite victims in Southern Africa struggle to get antivenom

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Snakebites are classified as a neglected tropical disease by the World Health Organization. In South Africa and other countries in the region, there are numerous barriers to getting the antivenom necessary to save limbs and lives. But scientists are working to make antivenom cheaper, safer and easier to produce. Kate Bartlett reports from Johannesburg. Camera: Zaheer Cassim
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Polio strikes as misinformation fuels vaccine refusal in Pakistan and Afghanistan

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The naturally occurring form of polio remains active in only two countries in the world: Pakistan and Afghanistan. Over 50 cases of so-called wild polio have been confirmed in the region this year despite continuing efforts to eradicate the disease. This report comes from both sides of the border, narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
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E. coli outbreak tied to McDonald’s Quarter Pounder kills 1, sickens dozens in US

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One person died and dozens fell ill from E. coli infections linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers in 10 states, led by Colorado, where 26 people were sickened, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said on Tuesday.

The E. coli outbreak, linked to one of McDonald’s most popular menu items, has sickened 49 people and sent 10 to the hospital, officials say.

The strain involved, E. coli O157:H7, can cause serious illness and was the source of a 1993 outbreak that killed four children who ate undercooked hamburgers at Jack in the Box restaurants.

Shares of the world’s largest fast-food chain were down about 6% in extended trading. A livestock trader said the outbreak also could pressure U.S. cattle futures on Wednesday by threatening demand for beef.

Everyone interviewed as part of an investigation into the outbreak has reported eating at McDonald’s before their illness started, and most mentioned eating a Quarter Pounder hamburger, according to the CDC.

The specific ingredient linked to the illness has not been identified but investigators are focused on fresh, slivered onions and fresh beef patties, the CDC said.

Most of the illnesses were reported in Colorado and Nebraska.

“The initial findings from the investigation indicate that a subset of illnesses may be linked to slivered onions used in the Quarter Pounder and sourced by a single supplier that serves three distribution centers,” McDonald’s North America Chief Supply Chain Officer Cesar Piña said in a statement.

McDonald’s has proactively removed the slivered onions and beef patties used for the Quarter Pounder hamburgers from stores in the affected states while the investigation continues, the company informed the CDC.

U.S. food safety attorney Bill Marler, who represented a victim in the Jack in the Box outbreak, said more cases of illness could surface. Onions have been linked to prior E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks, he said.

According to Marler, a founder of Marler Clark in Seattle, beef contamination is less common due to food safety measures. “You’d have to have multiple restaurants under-cooking the meat,” he said.

McDonald’s is temporarily removing the Quarter Pounder from restaurants in the impacted areas, including Colorado, Kansas, Utah and Wyoming, it said in a statement, adding it was working with suppliers to replenish supply in the coming week.

Symptoms for E. coli include severe stomach cramps, diarrhea and vomiting. Most people who suffer an infection will start feeling sick three to four days after eating or drinking something that contains the bacteria, Colorado’s public health department said. However, illnesses can start anywhere from one to 10 days after exposure, the department added.

In 2015, burrito chain Chipotle saw its sales battered and reputation hit due to E.coli outbreaks in several states. That outbreak was linked to a different strain of E. coli that typically causes less severe illness than E. coli O157:H7.

In addition to Colorado, the CDC said small clusters of a few people fell ill after eating a Quarter Pounder in Nebraska, Utah and Wyoming. Kansas, Missouri, Oregon, Iowa, Wisconsin and Montana had one illness apiece.
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Polio resurfaces in Ivory Coast, threatening country’s children

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Health officials say there have been six cases of polio reported in Ivory Coast in 2023, and one so far this year. It doesn’t seem like many, but any polio cases are cause for concern among health officials trying to completely eradicate the disease.  VOA’s Yassin Ciyow reports from Abidjan, in this story narrated by Anthony LaBruto. (Camera: Yassin Ciyow )
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Ukrainians find normalcy between shellings in Sumy ‘art yard’  

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In the front-line city of Sumy, Ukraine, some residents are trying to create a sense of normalcy despite constant Russian shelling. One particularly determined Sumy native has created an oasis of art in his yard. Olena Adamenko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Yuriy Andriushchenko       
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New mpox variant detected in Germany 

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Berlin — An infection with the new mpox variant clade 1b has been detected in Germany for the first time, the Robert Koch Institute health authority said on Tuesday.  

The infection occurred abroad and was detected last Friday, the institute said, adding that it did not see an increased risk for Germany but was “monitoring the situation very closely.”  

Mpox, a viral disease related to smallpox that causes fever, body aches, swollen lymph nodes and a rash that forms into blisters, has two main subtypes — clade 1 and clade 2.  

From May 2022, clade 2 spread around the world, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men in Europe and the United States. In July 2022, the WHO declared an international public health emergency, its highest level of alarm over the spread.  

Vaccination and awareness drives in many countries helped stem the number of worldwide cases and the WHO lifted the emergency in May 2023 after reporting 140 deaths out of roughly 87,400 cases.  

But this year, a new epidemic has broken out in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  

As well as clade 1, which mainly affects children, a new strain emerged in the DRC, called clade 1b.  

Clade 1b cases have also been recorded in nearby Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda — none of which had previously detected mpox. The WHO declared another international emergency in August.
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China unveils first diagnosis guidelines to battle escalating obesity crisis

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HONG KONG — China’s National Health Commission (NHC) published its first set of guidelines to standardize the diagnosis and treatment of obesity, with more than half of China’s adults already overweight and obese, and the rate expected to keep rising.

The guidelines, made public on October 17, come as China experiences an upward morbidity trend of its overweight and obese population. The rate of overweight or obese people could reach 65.3% by 2030, the NHC said.

“Obesity has become a major public health issue in China, ranking as the sixth leading risk factor for death and disability in the country,” the guidelines said.

China is facing a twin challenge that feeds its weight problem: In a modernizing economy underpinned by technological innovation, more jobs have become static or desk-bound, while a prolonged slowdown in growth is forcing people to adopt cheaper, unhealthy diets.

Job stress, long work hours and poor diets are growing high-risk factors in the cities, while in rural areas, agriculture work is becoming less physically demanding and inadequate healthcare is leading to poor screening and treatment of weight problems, doctors and academics say.

The guidelines provide guidance and regulations including in clinical nutrition, surgical treatment, behavioral and psychological intervention, and exercise intervention for obesity, Zhang Zhongtao, director of the guideline drafting committee and deputy head of Beijing Friendship Hospital, told the official Xinhua news agency.

China’s NHC and 15 other government departments in July launched public awareness efforts to fight obesity. The campaign, set to last for three years, is built around eight slogans: “lifelong commitment, active monitoring, a balanced diet, physical activity, good sleep, reasonable targets and family action.”

Health guidelines were distributed to primary and secondary schools in July urging regular screening, daily exercise, hiring nutritionists and implementing healthy eating habits – including lowering salt, oil and sugar.

Obesity in China is an “unintended consequence of improving living standards in the country,” Xinhua said, after China struggled for centuries to feed its population and under-nourishment was a genuine concern for many families before the reform and opening-up in the late 1970s.
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‘Garbage in, garbage out’: AI fails to debunk disinformation, study finds

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Washington — When it comes to combating disinformation ahead of the U.S. presidential elections, artificial intelligence and chatbots are failing, a media research group has found.

The latest audit by the research group NewsGuard found that generative AI tools struggle to effectively respond to false narratives.

In its latest audit of 10 leading chatbots, compiled in September, NewsGuard found that AI will repeat misinformation 18% of the time and offer a nonresponse 38.33% of the time — leading to a “fail rate” of almost 40%, according to NewsGuard.

“These chatbots clearly struggle when it comes to handling prompt inquiries related to news and information,” said McKenzie Sadeghi, the audit’s author. “There’s a lot of sources out there, and the chatbots might not be able to discern between which ones are reliable versus which ones aren’t.”

NewsGuard has a database of false news narratives that circulate, encompassing global wars and U.S. politics, Sadeghi told VOA.

Every month, researchers feed trending false narratives into leading chatbots in three different forms: innocent user prompts, leading questions and “bad actor” prompts. From there, the researchers measure if AI repeats, fails to respond or debunks the claims.

AI repeats false narratives mostly in response to bad actor prompts, which mirror the tactics used by foreign influence campaigns to spread disinformation. Around 70% of the instances where AI repeated falsehoods were in response to bad actor prompts, as opposed to leading prompts or innocent user prompts.

Foreign influence campaigns are able to take advantage of such flaws, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Russia, Iran and China have used generative AI to “boost their respective U.S. election influence efforts,” according to an intelligence report released last month.

As an example of how easily AI chatbots can be misled, Sadeghi cited a NewsGuard study in June that found AI would repeat Russian disinformation if it “masqueraded” as coming from an American local news source.

From myths about migrants to falsehoods about FEMA, the spread of disinformation and misinformation has been a consistent theme throughout the 2024 election cycle.

“Misinformation isn’t new, but generative AI is definitely amplifying these patterns and behaviors,” Sejin Paik, an AI researcher at Georgetown University, told VOA.

Because the technology behind AI is constantly changing and evolving, it is often unable to detect erroneous information, Paik said. This leads to not only issues with the factuality of AI’s output, but also the consistency.

NewsGuard also found that two-thirds of “high quality” news sites block generative AI models from using their media coverage. As a result, AI often has to learn from lower-quality, misinformation-prone news sources, according to the watchdog.

This can be dangerous, experts say. Much of the non-paywalled media that AI trains on is either “propaganda” or “deliberate strategic communication,” media scholar Matt Jordan told VOA.

“AI doesn’t know anything: It doesn’t sift through knowledge, and it can’t evaluate claims,” Jordan, a media professor at Penn State, told VOA. “It just repeats based on huge numbers.”

AI has a tendency to repeat “bogus” news because statistically, it tends to be trained on skewed and biased information, he added. He called this a “garbage in, garbage out model.”

NewsGuard aims to set the standard for measuring accuracy and trustworthiness in the AI industry through monthly surveys, Sadeghi said.

The sector is growing fast, even as issues around disinformation are flagged. The generative AI industry has experienced monumental growth in the past few years. OpenAI’s ChatGPT currently reports 200 million weekly users, more than double from last year, according to Reuters.

The growth in popularity of these tools leads to another problem in their output, according to Anjana Susarla, a professor in Responsible AI at Michigan State University. Since there is such a high quantity of information going in — from users and external sources — it is hard to detect and stop the spread of misinformation.

Many users are still willing to believe the outputs of these chatbots are true, Susarla said.

“Sometimes, people can trust AI more than they trust human beings,” she told VOA.

The solution to this may be bipartisan regulation, she added. She hopes that the government will encourage social media platforms to regulate malicious misinformation.

Jordan, on the other hand, believes the solution is with media audiences.

“The antidote to misinformation is to trust in reporters and news outlets instead of AI,” he told VOA. “People sometimes think that it’s easier to trust a machine than it is to trust a person. But in this case, it’s just a machine spewing out what untrustworthy people have said.”
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French government takes new blows over deal to sell painkiller maker to US fund

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Paris — French drugmaker Sanofi’s confirmation that it will sell a controlling stake in its consumer health unit to a U.S. investment fund sparked a new political backlash Monday, stoked by fears the deal marks a loss of sovereignty over key medications.  

Paris “must block the sale” using powers to protect strategic sectors, Manuel Bompard, a senior lawmaker in the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, told the TF1 broadcaster.  

Politicians and unions have torn into Sanofi’s proposed 16-billion-euro ($17.4 billion) deal with U.S. investment fund CD&R for a controlling stake in Opella.  

The subsidiary makes household-name drugs including Doliprane branded paracetamol  whose yellow boxes dominate the French market.  

Under pressure, Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s minority government said it had secured a two-percent stake in Opella for public investment bank Bpifrance and “extremely strong” guarantees against job cuts and offshoring.  

Opella employs over 11,000 workers and operates in 100 countries.  

Sanofi said it is the third-largest business worldwide in the market for over-the-counter medicines, vitamins and supplements.  

CD&R — which has a battery of investments in France — would help build Opella into a “French-headquartered, global consumer healthcare champion,” the pharma giant said in a statement.  

‘Just words’

But with memories of drug shortages during and since the Covid-19 pandemic still raw for many, critics say the defenses are too weak.

A small stake “won’t give the French state a say in strategic decisions” at Opella, said Bompard, whose LFI dominates a left alliance that is the largest opposition group against Barnier and President Emmanuel Macron.  

Thomas Portes, also of the LFI, posted on X that the government had offered “no guarantees, just words.”  

Economy Minister Antoine Armand said a contract between CD&R, Sanofi and the government included maintaining production sites, research and development and Opella’s official headquarters in France, as well as investing at least 70 million euros over five years.  

It covers “keeping up a minimum production volume for Opella’s sensitive products in France,” Armand added, including Doliprane, digestive medication Lanzor and Aspegic branded aspirin.  

There would be financial penalties for closing French production sites, laying off workers or failing to buy from French suppliers.  

That includes Seqens, a company re-establishing production in France of Doliprane’s active ingredient paracetamol.  

“Workers are not at all reassured by the latest developments,” said Johann Nicolas, a CGT union representative at Opella’s Doliprane plant in Lisieux, northern France.  

He added that a picket had throttled production there from around 1.3 million boxes of the drug per day to around 265,000.  

The proposed protections in the deal have also failed to win over even some in the government camp.  

Monday’s guarantees “do not at all indicate a commitment for the long term, whether on investment, supply or jobs,” Charles Rodwell, a lawmaker in Macron’s EPR party who has closely followed the case, told AFP.  

He vowed “painstaking” parliamentary surveillance of government action over the deal including measures to “block” the sale if ministers fall short.

Brand loyalty

Macron said last week that “the government has the instruments needed to protect France” from any unwanted “capital ownership.”  

Emotion over the Opella sales is closely linked to Doliprane.  

Boxes of the non-opioid analgesic against mild to moderate pain and fever often line entire pharmacy walls.  

The drug comes in many doses — from 100 mg for babies to 1,000 mg for adults — and in tablet, capsule, suppository and liquid forms.  

It is so ubiquitous that French people call any paracetamol product Doliprane, even when made by a different manufacturer.  

Sanofi, among the world’s top 12 health care companies, says the planned spinoff is part of a strategy to focus less on over-the-counter medication and more on innovative medicines and vaccines, including for polio, influenza and meningitis.
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