Day: October 13, 2018

The World Food Program warns climate change will have a devastating impact on agriculture and the ability of people to feed themselves.  The WFP forecasts a huge increase in worldwide hunger unless action is taken to slow global warming.  

The WFP warns progress in reducing global hunger is under threat by conflict and the increase in climate disasters. For the first time in several decades, the WFP reports the number of people suffering from chronic food shortages has risen.

This year, it says, 821 million people went to bed hungry, 11 million more than the previous year.  

Gernot Laganda, WFP’s chief of Climate and Disaster Risk Reduction, notes the number of climate disasters has more than doubled since the early 1990s.  He says extreme weather events are driving more people to flee their homes, leading to more hunger.

He told VOA the situation will get much worse as global temperatures rise.

“We are projecting that with a two-degree warmer world, we will have around 189 million people in a status of food insecurity more than today.  And, if it is a four-degrees warmer world, which is possible if no action is taken, we are looking beyond one billion more.  So, there is a very, very strong argument for early and decisive climate action,” said Laganda.

Data from this year’s State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report by six leading U.N. agencies show the bulk of losses and damages in food systems are due to drought and most of these disastrous events occur in Africa.

Laganda says the number of people suffering from hunger because of climate change-induced drought is rising particularly in Africa and Latin America. He notes that until recently progress in Asia had led to a reduction in world hunger, but that trend has slowed markedly.  

 
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One of the joys of computer algorithms and machine learning is their ability to extract new data from old technologies. Doctors at the University of London in Oxford for instance have figured out a way to take regular CT heart scans and predict heart problems years in advance. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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The United States and dozens of other countries have pledged to work together to tackle the illegal wildlife trade and treat it as a “serious and organized crime” following a two-day conference in London that ended Friday.

Trade in endangered wildlife, such as elephant tusks, rhino horns and tiger bones, is worth an estimated $17 billion a year and is pushing hundreds of species to the brink of extinction.

Speaking to heads of state from across the world, Britain’s Prince William, a passionate conservationist, said he recognized that law enforcement resources are already stretched in many countries.

“But I am asking you to see the connections, to acknowledge that the steps you take to tackle illegal wildlife crime could make it easier to halt the shipments of guns and drugs passing through your borders,” the prince told delegates.

Worldwide, the illegal wildlife trade is booming.

Illegal ivory trade activity has more than doubled since 2007, while over 1,300 rhino were killed in 2015. Asian tigers have seen a 95 percent decline in population, as their body parts are in demand for Chinese medicines and wine. In the last year, more than 100 wildlife rangers have died trying to tackle poachers.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions told the conference the U.S. will give $90 million to programs that fight illegal wildlife traffickers.

“Their criminal acts harm communities, degrade institutions, destabilize our environment and funnel billions of dollars to those who perpetuate evil in the world. These criminals must be and they can be stopped,” Sessions said.

It is not only big mammals at risk.

For example, a critically endangered water frog from the remote Lake Titicaca in Peru has seen its numbers plummet in recent years, as thousands have been trapped and taken to make a juice that some believe has medicinal properties, despite no scientific evidence.

Delegates at the conference applauded progress made, including China’s decision at the beginning of this year to close its domestic ivory market, hailed as a major step in safeguarding the world elephant population. 

WATCH: US Pledges $90 Million to Fight Illegal Wildlife Trade

Aron White of the Britain-based Environmental Investigation Agency says other animals need similar protection.

“This market was both stimulating demand for ivory and also enabling illegal ivory to be laundered through this legal trade,” White told VOA. “But that same issue still exists for big cats. You know, there’s a trade in leopard bone products [for example], large-scale commercial trade.”

Campaigners say existing United Nations Conventions on transnational organized crime offer firepower for tackling the illegal wildlife trade, but they are not being used effectively.

In the closing declaration, conference attendees pledged to work together to tackle the illegal wildlife trade and recognize it as a serious and organized crime.

The real test is how quickly they will act on those words.
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Scientists say climate change is becoming more pressing with news of melting permafrost and rising sea levels. Scientists have been urging people around the globe to reduce emissions of climate warming carbon, but the Salk Institute in San Diego is taking a different approach. There, scientists are working on developing plants that would capture more carbon than plants do now and store it away for centuries, preventing it from being released back into the atmosphere. Genia Dulot has the story.
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A U.N. employee in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has tested positive for Ebola, the first such incident during the current outbreak, according to the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission.

“I am writing today to inform you that my leadership team and I have regretfully just received news that a U.N. colleague based in Beni has tested positive for Ebola and is now receiving the necessary medical treatment,” Leila Zerrougui wrote in the letter obtained by the Reuters news agency.

Zerrougui said the employee had not been to work for several weeks and that officials were tracing the person’s contacts.

The news came after health officials warned that the rate of new Ebola cases had more than doubled since September.

Rise in cases a concern

The sharp rise has health officials concerned that the situation in eastern DRC Is at a crossroads.

Either the outbreak is getting worse, or local residents are finally responding to education campaigns and government edicts and are no longer resisting health workers.

The death toll stood at 125 as of Friday, out of 201 reported Ebola cases (166 confirmed and 35 probable), according to the DRC’s health ministry. 

This outbreak, the country’s 10th, initially was reported Aug. 1.  

“The fact that we see more cases could also be a positive sign,” said Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, speaking by phone from Geneva on Thursday. “… We have seen in the past that sometimes people would hide sick ones or would actively run away” from aid workers charged with tracing the contacts of infected patients — a step essential to curbing the deadly disease’s spread. 

Attack keeps workers inside

But insecurity is complicating the health community’s response in the outbreak’s epicenter in the North Kivu region, where more than 100 armed opposition groups operate, and more than 1 million people have been displaced. 

The jump in reported cases follows a Sept. 22 armed attack in Beni, a town near the border with Uganda and the center for aid efforts. Eighteen people died, including 14 civilians, according to the army. 

Jasarevic said WHO health workers were forced to stay indoors for two full days following the attack. 

“Operations were hampered by the insecurity,” Jasarevic said. “… And not only because of the [health] teams not being able to go out, but also because of the reaction of the population.”

Red Cross volunteers attacked

Other violence has impeded aid work in the region. Last week, three Red Cross volunteers on an Ebola burial team were attacked and injured while conducting their duties in the northeast city of Butembo, according to the DRC Red Cross. It said, in a statement, that two of the volunteers were being treated for serious wounds.

The Red Cross statement reminded people that the body of an Ebola victim is highly infectious and requires careful handling. The Ebola virus spreads through contact with bodily fluids. 

In addition, some families have refused to allow aid workers to check on and treat potential patients, and other victims have fled, raising the possibility that the virus could spread to neighboring Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan.

Jasarevic said local people’s “reaction to the Ebola response is sort of linked to their reaction to the general insecurity, basically thinking that if all these authorities, including international actors, are not able to provide security, how it would be then possible for them to try to control the outbreak?”

The WHO initially had predicted the disease possibly could be brought under control within three months, thanks in part to a vaccine that has proven effective for people who have been exposed but haven’t shown symptoms, and new treatment drugs for people who have contracted Ebola.

But Peter Salama, WHO’s executive director of the health emergencies program, said Thursday that the response timetable needed revision.

“We anticipate that now we’ll be looking at least another three or four months in order to really stem this outbreak, with a strong focus again on Beni and surrounding areas,” Salama said at a Geneva news conference.

This report originated in VOA’s English to Africa service. VOA’s Carol Guensburg contributed.
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