In Kenya, the opuntia cactus, also known as the prickly pear, is spreading, destroying thousands of acres of grassland, and making animals that eat it sick. Kenyans have come up with a variety of methods to try to eradicate the problem plant, including breeding a microorganism that feeds on the cactus and also turning it into food for humans. Mohammed Yusuf reports from Ilpolei, Kenya. …
While studying in college, Jasmine Burton discovered that one-third of the world’s people don’t have access to proper toilets. Burton decided to try to solve the problem. Ariadne Budianto reports. …
A Moroccan YouTuber was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison for “insulting the king” in a video broadcast on social networks, his lawyer said.In a separate case, a Moroccan journalist and activist was charged and detained over a tweet that had criticized a court decision, his defense council told AFP.The cases come after the Moroccan Human Rights Association had deplored in July an “escalation of violations of human rights and public and individual freedoms” in Morocco.The YouTuber Mohamed Sekkaki, known as “Moul Kaskita”, was sentenced by a court in the western city of Settat to four years in prison, his lawyer Mohamed Ziane told AFP.Sekkaki, whose videos usually exceed 100,000 views, was arrested in early December after posting a video in which he insulted Moroccans as “donkeys” and criticized King Mohammed VI, whose is considered “inviolable” under the constitution.Ziani said his client would appeal the verdict.The conviction of the …
People along a swath of southern Asia gazed at the sky in marvel on Thursday at a “ring of fire” solar eclipse. The so-called annular eclipse, in which a thin outer ring of the sun is still visible, could be seen along a path stretching from India and Pakistan to Thailand and Indonesia. Authorities in Indonesia provided telescopes and hundreds of special glasses to protect viewers’ eyes. Thousands of people gazed at the sky and cheered and clapped as the sun transformed into a dark orb for more than two minutes, briefly plunging the sky into darkness. Hundreds of others prayed at nearby mosques. “How amazing to see the ring of fire when the sun disappeared slowly,” said Firman Syahrizal, a resident of Sinabang in Indonesia’s Banda Aceh province who witnessed the eclipse with his family. The previous annular solar eclipse in …
Global carbon dioxide emissions rose by point-six percent this year, according to a new estimate. That’s at a time when scientists say the world needs to sharply cut greenhouse gas emissions in order to stave off the worst of climate change. There was a glimpse of good news in the data, though. Burning coal for energy is the single largest source of CO2, and coal use declined a bit this year. Some experts say a global shift away from the dirty fuel is underway. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more …
The era of Silicon Valley operating largely free from government regulation may be coming to an end.In 2019, lawmakers grilled tech executives at multiple hearings in Washington and federal regulators slapped record fines on tech firms. They promise action in the coming year on a host of issues: competition, online privacy, encryption and bias.U.S. tech companies such as Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon are girding themselves for more federal scrutiny.“As the internet companies matured without a lot of regulation, some issues have emerged where attention is needed,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat representing Silicon Valley since 1994 and who has introduced a national online privacy bill.“I think it’s fair enough to examine what kind of rules should be set in certain elements of the tech economy,” she said.FILE – Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., is pictured during a committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 24, 2019. Lofgren was …
It’s been a rocky year for the relationship between Washington and Silicon Valley, and next year could be worse. Lawmakers and regulators in the nation’s capital are scrutinizing technology firms over a host of issues — competition, online privacy, encryption, bias — and they are promising action. Michelle Quinn reports on how the frustrations could lead to new regulations that could have a global impact on how people communicate online. …
It was something, the silence. Nothing but the scuff of her slip-on shoes as Madeleine Mukantagara walked through the fields to her first patient of the day. Piercing cries once echoed down the hill to the road below. What she carried in her bag had calmed them.For 15 years, her patient Vestine Uwizeyimana had been in unrelenting pain as disease wore away her spine. She could no longer walk. Her life narrowed to a dark room with a dirt-floor in rural Rwanda, prayer beads hanging on the wall by her side.A year ago, relief came in the form of liquid morphine, locally produced as part of Rwanda’s groundbreaking effort to address one of the world’s great inequities: As thousands die from addiction in rich countries awash with prescription painkillers, millions of people in the poorest nations have no access to opioids at all.Companies don’t make money selling generic morphine to …
One California-based rocket company is 3D-printing engines that can be quickly made in high volumes. Rocket Lab says these high-performing rockets are reliable and are regularly used to launch satellites to low-Earth orbit each month. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details from Huntington Beach, California …
Patients with breast cancer who use supplements during chemotherapy may be at an increased risk of recurrence and death, a new study suggests.Use of dietary supplements that boost levels of antioxidants, iron, vitamin B12 and omega-3 fatty acids appeared to lower the effectiveness of chemotherapy, researchers report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.”From this study and others in the literature, it seems that it may not be wise to take supplements during chemotherapy,” said Christine Ambrosone, chair of cancer prevention and control, and senior vice president for population sciences at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York.”It’s thought that antioxidants might interfere with the ability of chemotherapy to kill cancer cells,” Ambrosone explained. “One way chemotherapy works is by generating lots of oxidative stress. The thinking is that antioxidants may block oxidative stress and make chemotherapy less effective.”Doctors have been advising patients for a number of years …
Before Sim Ark gave birth to her second child, she didn’t think much about what a workplace needed to accommodate a new mother.Now that she’s a working mother rather than a stay-at-home mom as she was with her first child, Sim Ark knows.”I want to have a daycare facility right in my workplace so that I can visit my baby while working,” said Sim Ark, 29, who works at the You Li International factory in Bavet city, in Cambodia’s Svay Rieng province.Three months after giving birth to her son Ham Ya Oudom, after many calls from factory administrators, Sim Ark returned to work. She didn’t want to risk losing her job.Her absence from home during the day meant the baby switched from breastfeeding to bottle-fed meals of infant formula. At night, he switched back to breast milk unless Sim Ark found herself working overtime, which she says causes her milk …
The Church of England has launched a study into an existential question: do its investments in big-tech giants contradict the Christian faith?The Church’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group (EIAG) will determine whether some of the new technologies undermine “the very idea of God”, a spokesman for the Church told AFP on Monday.The year-long review was first reported by The Daily Telegraph newspaper.EIAG was set up in the early 1990s to help make sure that more than £12 billion ($15.5 billion, 14 billion Euros) in assets held by the Church’s various institutions are put to ethical use.”Artificial intelligence [AI] is an important element of this review,” the spokesman said.The EIAG is in talks with technology experts as well as politicians and theologians “to try to make sense of the issues”, the spokesman said.It wants to reach a conclusion “that is not only grounded in theology and distinctly Anglican but is also practical”, …
Boeing Co’s Starliner astronaut spacecraft landed in the New Mexico desert on Sunday, the company said, after faulty software forced officials to cut short an unmanned mission aimed at taking it to the International Space Station.The landing at 7:58 a.m. ET (1258 GMT) in the White Sands desert capped a turbulent 48 hours for Boeing’s botched milestone test of an astronaut capsule that is designed to help NASA regain its human spaceflight capabilities. “We hit the bull’s-eye,” a Boeing spokesman said on a livestream of the landing. The landing will yield the mission’s most valuable test data after failing to meet its core objective of docking to the space station. After Starliner’s touchdown, teams of engineers in trucks raced to inspect the vehicle, whose six airbags cushioned its impact on the desert surface as planned, a live video feed showed. The spacecraft was in an apparently stable condition after landing, …
It took a blaze that nearly destroyed Paris’ most famous cathedral to reveal a gap in global safety regulations for lead, a toxic building material found across many historic cities.After the Notre Dame fire in April spewed dozens of tons of toxic lead-dust into the atmosphere in just a few hours, Paris authorities discovered a problem with the city’s public safety regulations: There was no threshold for them to gauge how dangerous the potentially-deadly pollution was from the dust that settled on the ground.Since then, The Associated Press has found this regulatory gap extends far beyond France. Officials in other historic European capitals such as Rome and London, as well as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization also have no such outdoor lead dust hazard guidelines.The reason, they say, is that although there are lead regulations, no one contemplated a conflagration on a lead-laden building the …
Facebook Inc has taken down a well-financed campaign that used dozens of artificially generated faces to spread pro-Trump and anti-Chinese government messages, the company and outside researchers said on Friday.Researchers from New York-based Graphika and the Digitial Forensics Research Lab, an arm of the Washington-based Atlantic Council, said it was the first time they had seen the large-scale use of computer-generated faces to spread disinformation on social media.Tell-tale signsThe researchers said in a report that while tell-tale signs such as misshapen ears and distorted backgrounds had helped them identify the fakes, “this technology is rapidly evolving toward generating more believable pictures.”Facebook said 610 Facebook accounts, 89 Pages, 156 Groups and 72 Instagram accounts were involved in the network.The social media giant said those behind the operation had spent upward of $9 million on advertising to promote their content, which touched on hot-button issues such as “impeachment, conservative ideology, political candidates, elections, …
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is holding talks with General Motors Co. on the automaker’s petition to deploy a limited number of self-driving vehicles on American roads without steering wheels or other human controls, the head of the agency said Friday. Acting NHTSA Administrator James Owens said his agency aims to decide soon on GM’s January 2018 petition as well as on a request by Nuro, a driverless delivery startup backed by Softbank Corp., to deploy a limited number of low-speed, highly automated delivery vehicles without human occupants. The agency’s review comes at a time of heightened concerns about the safety of automated piloting systems in vehicles and aircraft, a potential revolution in ground and air transportation. “I expect we’re going to be able to move forward with these petitions soon — as soon as we can,” Owens told Reuters, adding action “definitely” would come next year. “This will be a big deal because this will be the first such action that will be taken,” Owens said. GM, the No. …
Twitter says it has removed nearly 6,000 accounts it has deemed tied to a state-backed information operation in Saudi Arabia.Twitter says the accounts violated its “platform manipulation policies” and targeted discussions related to Saudi Arabia and advancing its geopolitical interests.The 5,929 accounts removed are part of a larger group of 88,000 accounts engaged in “spammy behavior” across a wide range of topics. But Twitter isn’t disclosing all of them because some might be compromised accounts.Twitter began archiving Tweets and media it deems to be associated with known state-backed information operations in 2018. It shut 200,000 Chinese accounts that targeted Hong Kong protests in August.Social media companies have been trying to tackle misinformation on their services, especially ahead of next year’s U.S. presidential elections. The efforts followed revelations that Russians bankrolled thousands of fake political ads during the 2016 elections. Twitter’s announcement Friday underscores the fact that misinformation concerns aren’t limited …
Boeing’s new Starliner capsule went off course after launch Friday and won’t dock with the International Space Station during its first test flight. It was supposed to be a crucial dress rehearsal for next year’s inaugural launch with astronauts.The blastoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida, went flawlessly as the Atlas V rocket lifted off with the Starliner capsule. But a half-hour into the flight, Boeing reported that the capsule didn’t get into the right orbit to reach the space station. The capsule is still in space and will be brought back to Earth, landing in New Mexico as early as Sunday.Boeing is one of two companies hired by NASA to launch astronauts from the U.S. The space agency has been relying on Russian rockets to travel to the space station since the retirement of the space shuttle almost nine years ago.Officials stressed that the capsule was in a safe and stable orbit. …
Ethiopia has launched its first satellite.The satellite was launched into space Friday from at a space station in China. Ethiopian and Chinese officials and scientists, however, watched a live broadcast of the Ethiopian Remote Sensing Satellite launch at the Entoto Observatory and Research Center, north of the East African country’s capital, Addis Ababa. “This will be a foundation for our historic journey to prosperity,” Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen said in a speech at the event. “The technology is an important even if it’s delayed.” Solomon Belay, the director general of the Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute, told Reuters that China covered most of the costs of building the satellite. The data from the satellite will help Ethiopia to monitor the country’s resources and improve its responses. …
The Senate approved a bill Thursday to crack down on robocalls, sending to President Donald Trump a measure meant to combat a persistent and costly problem for Americans.The bill, which Trump is expected to sign, would stiffen enforcement and require that phone companies offer free consumer tools to identify and block scam calls. It also calls for tougher fines when individuals intentionally violate the law.It echoes and builds on preventive measures that the Federal Communications Commission and state attorneys general have pushed for. It potentially speeds up steps the telecom industry is already taking to protect Americans from the billions of scam calls made each month.Maureen Mahoney, policy analyst for Consumer Reports, said the measure was an important step, though “robocalls are not going to disappear overnight.”Robocalls have flooded Americans’ phones because technology makes it cheap and easy to call people. Enforcement is difficult, with many scammers overseas. Even with …
Canada’s minister of health, Patty Hajdu, on Thursday proposed banning promotion and advertising of vaping products in public spaces, convenience stores and online, in an effort to curb youth use of e-cigarettes.Hajdu also announced new mandatory health warnings on vaping product packaging.The proposed regulations come amid growing fears surrounding vaping’s safety and mounting evidence that youth vaping is on the rise both among people who once smoked and those who had not.FILE – Canada’s Minister of Health Patty Hajdu speaks in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Dec. 10, 2019.While e-cigarettes are marketed as a safer alternative to traditional cigarettes and a means to help smokers quit, health officials are concerned they are getting a new generation hooked on nicotine.The number of Canadian teens who said they had vaped in the past month doubled from 10% to 20% between 2017-’18 and 2018-’19, according to the …
A study by a U.S. agency has found that facial recognition technology often performs unevenly based on a person’s race, gender or age.But the nuanced report published Thursday is unlikely to allay the concerns of critics who worry about bias in face-scanning applications that are increasingly being adopted by law enforcement, airports and a variety of businesses.The National Institute of Standards and Technology has been studying facial recognition for nearly two decades, but this is the first time it has investigated demographic differences in how face-scanning algorithms are able to identify people.The study was prompted in part by growing concern among lawmakers and privacy advocates that biased results in commercial face recognition software could entrench racial discrimination in the criminal justice system and elsewhere.The report cautions against “incomplete” previous research alleging biased facial recognition that has alarmed the public, but also confirms similar trends showing higher error rates for women, …
The World Health Organization says insecurity and lack of access in conflict-ridden parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo remain major threats to ending the Ebola outbreak there.The latest reports put the number of confirmed cases at 3,354, including 2,218 deaths.Health officials are concerned progress made against the Ebola outbreak in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces could come undone because of ongoing fighting among dozens of armed groups.The World Health Organization says the deadly virus has been cleared from 25 of the region’s health zones. It says an average of four to 10 new cases a week have been recorded in four zones in recent weeks. However, the executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, Michael Ryan, says there’s been a big increase recently in the number of cases in North Kivu’s Mabalako zone.”Last week, four to 10 of December, the number of cases jumped to 27 in …
Sweeping new fuel rules aiming to cut pollution belching from ships and save lives are now just a couple of weeks away, but with no central policing agency and several countries still not signed up to them, compliance is a major concern. From January 2020, ships must use fuel with a sulfur content of 0.5%, down from 3.5%, or install devices, known as scrubbers, that strip out the toxic pollutant. As a result, refiners and shipping companies will spend billions of dollars in the years ahead on ensuring fuel and engines comply. But enforcement of the U.N. convention on cleaner fuels — known as MARPOL Annex VI — rests with individual countries and flag states, meaning for some routes and regions, compliance is already looking patchy. A handful of major states resisted pressure this month at the U.N.’s COP25 climate talks in Madrid to ramp up efforts to combat global warming, underscoring a …
