New technologies are helping people who are disabled with physical, cognitive, vision and hearing problems. Some promising new tools include a digital glove that translates sign language, and tactile windows for people who are blind. More from VOA’s Deborah Block.
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Month: September 2018
Researchers at the European Space Agency are preparing for a historic trip. They say their Solar Orbiter, a modified spacecraft built to withstand the heat, will travel closer to the sun than ever before, which may help scientists study the buildup of solar storms. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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Malawi continues to struggle to develop its tourism industry, despite having several attractions, including national parks, game reserves and mountains. But the government has developed a Tourism Strategic Plan that seeks to address challenges to attracting more tourists. Lameck Masina reports on Malawi’s efforts to develop the industry, after attending a recent tourism street carnival in the country’s commercial capital, Blantyre.
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Tiger Woods scored his first victory in more than five years on Sunday, completing a two-shot win at the Tour Championship to crown a fairy tale comeback after a near two-year absence.
The 42-year-old, 14-time major winner carded a one-over-par 71 at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Course to claim the 80th title of his glittering career.
Woods, who finished with an 11-under-par aggregate 269, raised his arms in delight after the victory, with several thousand fans ringing the green roaring appreciation.
Woods admitted he had nearly been overcome with emotion as he walked up the 18th fairway.
“I was having a hard time not crying coming up the last hole,” Woods said.
“I kept saying ‘Hey, I could still play this out of bounds.’ But once I got the ball on the green I gave (caddie) Joey (LaCava) a high five because I knew it was done.”
It was an emotional finale to a year which saw Woods return to the highest level after he had once feared he may never play golf again.
“It was just a grind out there,” Woods said of his final round. “I loved every bit of it. The fight, the grind, the tough conditions.
“Beginning of the year (winning) was a tall order. But as the year progressed I found my swing and put the pieces together and I knew I could do it.”
The victory erased any last lingering doubts about Woods’ ability to compete at the highest level, something he had served notice of with top 10 finishes at the British Open and US PGA Championships.
Woods, who returned in January after missing almost the entire previous two years with a debilitating back injury, held a three-shot advantage heading into the final round.
A birdie on his opening hole extended Woods’ lead to four shots to give the former world number one a dream start.
With the remainder of the 30-man field struggling to make any inroads, Woods then played solid if unspectacular golf to keep a stranglehold on the lead.
A bogey on the 10th was a mere blip, with Woods re-establishing a five-shot cushion at 13 under after rolling in a 13-foot birdie putt on the par-four 13th.
Billy Horschel closed the gap to four shots after after a four-under-par final round 66, but Woods looked to be in control.
Woods, however, gave his army of fans roaring him on a scare though when back-to-back bogeys on the 15th and 16th holes cut his lead to two with two to play.
But he steadied the ship with a par on the 17th and then closed out the win with a par on 18.
The victory was Woods’s first since his win at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in August 2013.
Meanwhile England’s Olympic champion Justin Rose ensured he walks off with the FedEx Cup playoff title after finishing on six under for a share of fourth.
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The United Nations, the World Bank and the International Committee of the Red Cross are partnering with technology powerhouses to launch a global initiative aimed at preventing famines.
“The fact that millions of people — many of them children — still suffer from severe malnutrition and famine in the 21st century is a global tragedy,” World Bank President Jim Young Kim said announcing the initiative.
The global organization will work with Microsoft, Google and Amazon Web Services to develop the Famine Action Mechanism (FAM), a system capable of identifying food crisis area that are most likely to turn into a full-blown famine.
“If we can better predict when and where future famines will occur, we can save lives by responding earlier and more effectively,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a statement.
The tech giants will help develop a set of analytical models that will use the latest technoligies like Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to not only provide early warnings but also trigger pre-arranged financing for crisis management.
“Artificial intelligence and machine learning hold huge promise for forecasting and detecting early signs of food shortages, like crop failures, droughts, natural disasters and conflicts,” Smith said.
According to the U.N. and World Bank, there are 124 million people experiencing crisis-level food insecurity in the world today.
FAM will be at first rolled out in five countries that “exhibit some of the most critical and ongoing food security needs,” according to the World Bank, which didn’t identify the nations. It will ultimately be expanded to cover the world.
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Fatal drug overdoses increased to a record 4,854 last year in Ohio, a 20 percent rise compared with the previous year, according to information reported to the state.
Data on unintentional drug deaths provided to the Ohio Department of Health show 2017 was the eighth year in a row that drug deaths increased, The Columbus Dispatch reported Sunday. Ohio’s county coroners logged 4,050 fatal overdoses in 2016.
The newspaper’s review of the data shows the synthetic opioid fentanyl continued to fuel the drug epidemic, accounting for nearly three-fourths of last year’s overdose deaths and killing 3,431 people. That was 46 percent higher than in the previous year. Cocaine-related deaths increased 39 percent from 1,109 in 2016 to 1,540 last year.
Positive news shown by the data included a 46 drop in heroin deaths to 987 last year for the fewest deaths in four years.
Fatal overdoses from prescription opioids also fell in 2017 to 523. That was the lowest number in eight years, down from a peak of 724 deaths in 2011, the newspaper reported.
Russ Kennedy, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Health, says while review of the data confirms fentanyl is “driving overdose deaths in the state,” Ohio also is seeing “significant progress in reducing the number of prescription opioids available for abuse.”
Kennedy confirmed Sunday that the health department expects to release its own analysis of 2017 drug deaths this week. He also noted that the information shows the number of unintentional overdose deaths in Ohio declined during the second half of 2017 by 23 percent.
A recent state report on drug trends stated that “drug cartels have flooded Ohio” with fentanyl, and many users don’t realize they’ve taken the opioid because it’s being cut into heroin and cocaine and even “pressed” into prescription opioids.
“Drug dealers are flooding communities with different drugs to see what takes. They are very smart businesspeople,” said Lori Criss, chief executive officer of the Ohio Council of Behavioral Health & Family Services Providers.
Cheri Walter, chief executive officer of the Ohio Association of County Behavioral Health Authorities, said the state’s death toll was high, but could have been much worse.
“The reality is, we’ve focused on opioids and heroin, and now we’re seeing more deaths involving other drugs, so we’ve got to (broaden our) focus on treatment” for all kinds of addiction, Walter said.
Gov. John Kasich’s administration is spending more than $1 billion a year to fight the drug epidemic, most of it to provide addiction treatment though Medicaid expansion. The state also is investing in providing the opioid-overdose antidote, naloxone, to first responders and others and in supporting efforts including drug courts, housing for recovering addicts and educational programs.
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vows the United States will be victorious in any trade war with China, a day before the Trump administration’s latest tariffs on Chinese imports go into effect.
Pompeo told Fox News on Sunday. “We are going to get an outcome which forces China to behave in a way that if you want to be a power, a global power… you do not steal intellectual property.”
The Trump administration has argued tariffs on Chinese goods would force China to trade on more favorable terms with the United States.
It has demanded that China better protect American intellectual property, including ending the practice of cyber theft. The Trump administration has also called on China to allow U.S. companies greater access to Chinese markets and to cut its U.S. trade surplus.
Last week, the United States ordered duties on another $200 billion of Chinese goods to go into effect on September 24 (Monday). China responded by adding $60 billion of U.S. products to its import tariff list.
The Untied States already has imposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods, and China has retaliated on an equal amount of U.S. goods.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump threatened more tariffs on Chinese goods — another $267 billion worth of duties that would cover virtually all the goods China imports to the United States.
At least 14 civilians were killed on Saturday in a six-hour attack by rebels on the town of Beni in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, local officials told Reuters, warning the unrest may hamper efforts to quash an Ebola epidemic in the area.
The latest outbreak of the deadly disease has been focused in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, which have been a tinder box of armed rebellion and ethnic killing since two civil wars in the late 1990s.
Militants believed to belong to the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan Islamist group active in eastern Congo, clashed with Congolese troops in Beni, a town of several hundred thousand people, local civil society leader Kizito Bin Hangi said by telephone.
“Beni is ungovernable this morning. Several protests have been declared in the town where the people express their anger with consternation,” he said.
In addition to the known fatalities, dozens of civilians were wounded as they fled the violence, which broke out in the early hours of Saturday evening and lasted until midnight, Bin Hangi added.
A spokesman for the army declined immediate comment.
The attack underscores the challenges the government and health organizations face in tackling Ebola in an area where years of instability has undermined locals’ confidence in the authorities.
The violence “will have a considerable impact on the whole response to Ebola,” a local public health official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
“The general hospital which houses one of the Ebola treatment centers was the focus of angry protests this morning.
This is a normal reaction for a community that is bereaved for the umpteenth time,” the official said.
The latest Ebola outbreak, which causes hemorrhagic fever, vomiting and diarrhea, is believed to have killed 99 people since July and infected another 48.
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Inside a hidden vault in Los Angeles, California, is a treasure trove of cars from around the world. It’s the collection of the Petersen Automotive Museum, and it is now open to the public. As Faiza Elmasry tells us, visiting the vault is like traveling back in time, exploring the history of auto-making. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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A former Afghan refugee turned doctor in the United Kingdom is using technology and the web to save lives in war-torn and low income countries. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo has more on what the doctor has dubbed “Teleheal,” the charitable organization he recently founded.
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Plastic pollution floating in our seas is creating huge environmental hazards, polluting our oceans and killing animals like seabirds and marine life. But a new study shows young turtles, in particular, are at a higher risk of dying from eating ocean-borne plastic because it doesn’t take a lot of plastic to kill them. VOA’s Deborah Block more.
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What makes food organic and what does the “USDA organic” label really mean? VOA’s Mariia Prus visited a certified organic farm in southern Maryland to find out more and spoke to some consumers about why they prefer organically grown products. Joy Wagner narrates for VOA reporter Mariia Prus in Saint Mary’s County.
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Comcast beat Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox in the battle for Sky after offering 30.6 billion pounds ($40 billion) for the British broadcaster, in a dramatic auction to decide the fate of the pay-television group.
U.S. cable giant Comcast bid 17.28 pounds a share for control of London-listed Sky, bettering a 15.67 offer by Fox, the Takeover Panel said in a statement shortly after final bids were made Saturday.
Comcast’s final offer was significantly higher than its bid going into the auction of 14.75 pounds, and compares with Sky’s closing share price of 15.85 pounds on Friday.
Brian Roberts, chairman and chief executive of Comcast, coveted Sky to expand its international presence as growth slows in its core U.S. market.
Owning Sky will make Comcast the world’s largest pay-TV operator with around 52 million customers.
“This is a great day for Comcast,” Roberts said on Saturday. “This acquisition will allow us to quickly, efficiently and meaningfully increase our customer base and expand internationally.”
Comcast, which also owns the NBC network and movie studio Universal Pictures, encouraged Sky shareholders to accept its offer. It said it wanted to complete the deal by the end of October.
Comcast, which requires 50 percent plus one share of Sky’s equity to win control, said it was also seeking to buy Sky shares in the market.
A spokesman for Fox, which has a 39 percent holding in Sky, declined to comment.
The quick-fire auction marked a dramatic climax to a protracted transatlantic bidding battle waged since February, when Comcast gate-crashed Fox’s takeover of Sky.
It is a blow to media mogul Murdoch, 87, and the U.S. media and entertainment group that he controls, which had been trying to take full ownership of Sky since December 2016.
It is also a setback for U.S. entertainment giant Walt Disney, which agreed on a separate $71 billion deal to buy the bulk of Fox’s film and TV assets, including the Sky stake, in June and would have taken ownership of the British broadcaster following a successful Fox takeover.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May’s aides have begun contingency planning for a snap election in November to save both Brexit and her job, the Sunday Times reported.
The newspaper said that two senior members of May’s Downing Street political team began “war-gaming” an autumn vote to win public backing for a new plan, after her Brexit proposals were criticized at a summit in Salzburg last week.
Downing Street was not immediately available to comment on the report.
Meanwhile, opposition Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn said Saturday that his party would challenge May on any Brexit deal she could strike with Brussels, and he said there should be a national election if the deal fell short.
The British government said Saturday that it would not “capitulate” to European Union demands in Brexit talks and again urged the bloc to engage with its proposals after May said Brexit talks with the EU had hit an impasse.
“We will challenge this government on whatever deal it brings back on our six tests, on jobs, on living standards, on environmental protections,” Corbyn told a rally in Liverpool, northern England, on the eve of Labor’s annual conference.
“And if this government can’t deliver, then I simply say to Theresa May the best way to settle this is by having a general election.”
Labor’s six tests consist of whether a pact would provide for fair migration, a collaborative relationship with the EU, national security and cross-border crime safeguards, even treatment for all U.K. regions, protection of workers’ rights, and maintenance of single-market benefits.
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Tensions between China and the United States escalated Saturday as China’s Foreign Ministry summoned U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad to issue a harsh protest against U.S. sanctions set for the purchase of Russian fighter jets and surface-to-air missiles.
The move came hours after China canceled trade talks with the U.S. following Washington’s imposition of new tariffs on Chinese goods.
The statement on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s website called the imposition of sanctions “a serious violation of the basic principles of international law” and a “hegemonic act.” The ministry also wrote, “Sino-Russian military cooperation is the normal cooperation of the two sovereign states, and the U.S. has no right to interfere.” The U.S. actions, it said, “have seriously damaged the relations” with China.
China had earlier called on the U.S. to withdraw the sanctions, and speaking to reporters Friday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Beijing had lodged an official protest with the United States.
China’s purchase of the weapons from Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport violated a 2017 U.S. law intended to punish the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin for interfering in U.S. elections and other activities. The U.S. action set in motion a visa ban on China’s Equipment Development Department and director Li Shangfu, forbids transactions with the U.S. financial system, and blocks all property and interests in property involving the country within U.S. jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reported that China had planned to send Vice Premier Liu He to Washington next week for trade talks, but canceled his trip, along with that of a midlevel delegation that was to precede him.
Earlier Friday, a senior White House official had said the U.S. was optimistic about finding a way forward in trade talks with China.
The official told reporters at the White House that China “must come to the table in a meaningful way” for there to be progress on the trade dispute.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while there was no confirmed meeting between the United States and China, the two countries “remain in touch.”
“The president’s team is all on the same page as to what’s required from China,” according to the official.
The Trump administration has argued that tariffs on Chinese goods would force China to trade on more favorable terms with the United States.
It has demanded that China better protect American intellectual property, including ending the practice of cybertheft. The Trump administration has also called on China to allow U.S. companies greater access to Chinese markets and to cut its U.S. trade surplus.
Earlier this week, the United States ordered duties on another $200 billion of Chinese goods to go into effect on Sept. 24. China responded by adding $60 billion of U.S. products to its import tariff list.
The United States already has imposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods, and China has retaliated on an equal amount of U.S. goods.
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The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports a growing number of children in eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo orphaned by the Ebola outbreak in the region are at risk of stigmatization and abandonment.
UNICEF reports a number of children have died from the disease. Others, it says, have lost one or both parents to Ebola or have been left to fend for themselves while their parents are confined in Ebola treatment centers.
UNICEF spokesman, Christophe Boulierac, says his and other aid agencies so far have identified 155 children who have been orphaned or separated from their parents with no one to care for them. He says these children are extremely vulnerable.
“Children who lose a parent due to Ebola are at risk of being stigmatized, isolated or abandoned, in addition to the experience of losing a loved one or primary caregiver.”
Boulierac says UNICEF worries about the physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing of these orphaned and separated children. He says his agency is tailoring its assistance programs to meet the specific needs of each individual child.
“For instance, a new-born who has lost his mother has different needs than a school-aged child. Our support to an orphaned or unaccompanied child typically includes psycho-social care, food and material assistance, and support to reintegrate into school,” Boulierac said.
Ebola was declared on August 1 in the DRC’s conflict-ridden North Kivu and Ituri provinces. This is the 10th outbreak in the DRC since Ebola was first identified in 1976. Latest estimates by the World Health Organization find 147 confirmed and probable cases of Ebola in the eastern part of the country, including 97 deaths.
WHO reports progress is being made in limiting the spread of the deadly virus in some areas. But, it warns the epidemic is far from over and much work to combat the disease lies ahead.
Keith Green has an unusual fascination with vacant lots. Even on vacation.
Out for dinner in Shanghai one recent night, he came across a sight that stopped him short.
“Everyone else is taking pictures of the skyline,” he said. “I’m taking a picture of a vacant lot.”
Scourge of abandoned property
Abandoned properties don’t attract many tourists. In Green’s hometown of Philadelphia, vacant lots attract crime, from dumping trash, tires and broken appliances to stashing weapons and drugs.
Green is leading an effort to rid Philadelphia of these blights in low-income communities.
It’s a massive job. The city has an estimated 40,000 vacant lots.
But Green is witnessing how a little green space can make a big difference in urban areas plagued with poverty and crime.
Recent studies published in major scientific journals have documented how the program Green heads is helping drive substantial reductions in gun violence and depression in some of the poorest parts of Philadelphia.
Before the shooting starts
Gina South co-wrote those studies. She’s an emergency department physician at the University of Pennsylvania. Since her residency on the trauma unit, she has wanted to do more to help the people from these neighborhoods before they came to her on stretchers.
“We took care of a lot of shooting victims and did a great job of treating their physical injuries,” she said, “but did little to nothing to think about what was causing them to come in as shooting victims to us in the first place.”
Several years ago, South became interested in the program Green directs at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, called Philadelphia LandCare.
The program hires local landscapers to clear the trash and weeds from vacant lots, replace them with trees and grass, mow them twice a month, and surround them with fences with openings that invite people in.
Physical, emotional benefits
South said at first she was skeptical that it would do much for residents.
But the more she and her colleagues looked into it, the more positive results they found.
In one study, they found people’s heart rates declined as they walked past cleaned-up lots. That shows their stress levels are coming down, “a physiologic reaction happening in people’s bodies in response to what’s in their neighborhood environment,” she said.
Fighting crime with lawnmowers
The most significant results come from the group’s study of 541 vacant lots scattered across the city. They were divided into three groups. One got the full cleaning and greening treatment. One just got periodic trash pickups. One got nothing.
Around the cleaned and greened lots, crime declined by nearly 10 percent overall. In the poorest neighborhoods, gun crimes fell by 17 percent.
“Those are big effects,” said Northwestern University criminologist Wesley Skogan, who was not involved with the study.
Cleaning and greening vacant lots is “wiping out signs that nobody’s watching, nobody cares, nobody’s in charge,” he added.
It fits in with a concept called the “broken windows” theory. The idea is, disorder in the environment sends a signal that more disorder will be tolerated, including criminal behavior.
The theory became controversial as it evolved into “stop and frisk” policing, in which officers confront anyone they suspect may be up to no good.
Cleaning and greening “is much closer just to fixing the … window,” Skogan said.
South’s group also found that in the lowest-income neighborhoods, nearly 70 percent fewer people said they felt depressed.
It’s good for neighborhood morale, Skogan said. “It’s a sign that someone’s looking out for them. Someone’s paying attention.”
‘I didn’t think it would work’
The program is working better than even Green expected.
He had been doing community gardening with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society as the LandCare program was getting started in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“I was curious about the program. I didn’t think it would work,” he said.
At the time, he was planting flowers and shrubs and surrounding them with cyclone fences “to keep people out,” he said.
“This project was inviting people in. I was like, ‘That’s not going to work. People aren’t going to respect it.’”
“Then I started seeing people put picnic tables on it, putting garden areas in certain spots. They’re not destroying it,” he added. “Then I was like, ‘This can actually work.’ When I had the opportunity, I was all in.”
Green said each lot costs about $1,600 to treat and about $200 per year to maintain.
“It is a bargain,” South said.
However, Skogan would like to see research showing how it compares to other approaches.
“Probably nobody thought it was a bad idea to clean things up and put up fences,” he said. “It’s always a question of whether you do this versus something else. What this (research) says is, it’s not foolish.”
Green said he gets calls from officials across the country and the world asking how a little green space can help revive their neighborhoods.
He said he sees people’s mindsets changing in neighborhoods where he’s working. Kids don’t throw trash in the cleaned-up lots, he said. They pick it up.
That’s been satisfying enough, he said. “But when you start throwing (in) these numbers, like, gun violence is going down, and people’s heart rates are being reduced, people are exercising more in certain sections of Philadelphia, you’re just like, wow.”
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A little green space can make a big difference in blighted city neighborhoods, according to recent research from Philadelphia. It found that turning vacant lots into mini-parks reduced crime and cut rates of depression, especially in low-income areas. VOA’s Steve Baragona went to have a look.
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