Day: December 3, 2022

WHO Chief: More than 8,500 COVID Deaths Last Week 

The director-general of the World Health Organization said Friday that due to COVID-19 “more than 8,500 people lost their lives last week — which is not acceptable three years into the pandemic, when we have so many tools to prevent infections and save lives.”

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last Saturday marked the anniversary of WHO’s announcement of COVID-19’s omicron variant, which he said “has proved to be significantly more transmissible than its predecessor, delta, and continues to cause significant mortality due to the intensity of transmission.”

The WHO chief said omicron has evolved and there are now “over 500 sublineages of omicron circulating” and all of them are “highly transmissible” and “have mutations that enable them to escape built-up immunity more easily.”

While WHO believes the world is “closer to being able to say that the emergency phase of the pandemic is over,” Tedros said, “we are not there yet,” despite WHO estimates that at least 90% of the world’s population has some form of COVID immunity, due to infection of vaccination.

Tedros warned that, “Gaps in surveillance, testing, sequencing and vaccination are continuing to create the perfect conditions for a new variant of concern to emerge that could cause significant mortality.”

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China Eases Some COVID Restrictions Following Protests

Days after protests erupted in China over the country’s strict zero-COVID policy, there are signs the government is beginning to ease its testing requirements and quarantine rules in some cities, but it is unclear whether the measures will go far enough to appease those who have been in lockdown for so long.

Some called for more protests in China this weekend, but it remains to be seen if people will take to the streets like they did last weekend, when demonstrations broke out in more than 20 cities in a display of civil disobedience rarely seen in China.

“It’s hard to predict” what will happen this weekend, Sophie Richardson, the China director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA’s Mandarin Service.

Few people last weekend had been expecting to see Chinese residents “come out onto the streets in cities across the country, unmasked and calling for an end to lockdowns,” she said.

“The authorities have certainly made clear that they don’t want more of those — both by dispersing, surveilling and detaining some people, but also by agreeing in some areas to some relaxations on COVID-19 restrictions,” Richardson said.

Chinese officials said this week they are taking steps to ease coronavirus restrictions. While officials did not publicly mention the protesters, the move was widely seen as an effort to ease public anger over the government’s COVID-19 restrictions and head off any more demonstrations.

Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who heads the country’s coronavirus response efforts, said during a panel discussion with health workers on Wednesday that China would take “small steps” to relax its COVID-19 policy.

She said the country is facing a “new reality” as the omicron variant poses less of a threat than previous variants.

Several Chinese cities, including Guangzhou in the south and Shijiazhuang in the north said they were easing testing requirements and restrictions on movement. In the capital, Beijing, some neighborhoods said they would allow people who have tested positive for COVID-19 to quarantine at home instead of in government facilities, according to state-run media.

CNN reported Friday that Chinese President Xi Jinping acknowledged frustration within his country over the government’s strict COVID policies.

The news outlet quoted a European Union official who requested anonymity who said Xi told visiting European Council President Charles Michel in Beijing on Thursday that the protesters were “mainly students” who were frustrated by the government’s COVID-19 measures.

The Chinese leader hinted at the potential relaxation of the measures, saying that the omicron variant is less deadly than the delta variant, according to CNN.

Joe Mazur, a senior analyst at Beijing-based consulting firm Trivium China, wrote on Twitter on Friday that he and his colleagues are “convinced major shift is finally happening in China’s approach to COVID.”

He said the government is taking several steps that would indicate a true policy shift, including downplaying the seriousness of omicron, ramping up vaccination efforts, and allowing people with certain mild COVID-19 cases to quarantine at home.

A top World Health Organization official said Friday the agency was pleased to see China loosening some of its coronavirus restrictions. Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO emergencies executive director, said, “It’s really important that governments listen to their people when the people are in pain.”

He said China could boost its immunization coverage by using imported messenger RNA vaccines, like those made by BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna.

China has not yet authorized any foreign-made vaccines, which have been found to be highly effective. The country has struggled to vaccinate its elderly population, with only two-thirds of the people 80 and older are fully vaccinated, according to China’s National Health Commission.

Despite Chinese officials signaling a shift in policy, many of the COVID-19 restrictions that brought people into the streets to demonstrate this past week remain in force. It remains to be seen whether the moves by the government will go far enough to appease those frustrated by lengthy lockdowns and widespread testing.

Police patrolled the streets in major Chinese cities in an effort to head off any more protests. Notes on social media said people were being stopped at random by police who were checking their phones, possibly looking for any signs that they were supporting the protests.

An unknown number of people were detained in the recent demonstrations. Richardson said it is “virtually impossible to know at this point” how many protesters have been detained, on what charges they were brought in, and how they are being treated.

A Shanghai resident who participated in a vigil last Saturday to commemorate those who died in a fire in the western Xinjiang region told VOA he witnessed police arresting multiple people.

The fire in Urumqi was what initially spawned the protests across China, with many saying the victims in the burning building were blocked by locked doors and other anti-infection controls. Chinese officials have denied the doors were blocked and blamed “forces with ulterior motives” for linking the fire to the strict COVID-19 measures.

The Shanghai vigil eyewitness, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, told VOA Mandarin, “The police were arresting people in my face because I was always in the front row of the crowd. I was never targeted by them, just luck.”

Asked why he participated in the vigil, he said, “I happened to see it and felt that I had to participate because this is my responsibility as a citizen.”

John Kirby, the U.S. National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, told VOA that the United States has consistently supported the right of people to protest around the world.

The fundamental right for citizens is “to be able to freely assemble without fear, without intimidation, certainly without violence, to protest, to make their voices heard on issues that matter to them,” he said.

A bipartisan group of more than 40 U.S. senators warned China on Thursday against any violent crackdown on peaceful protesters saying there would be “grave consequences” for such actions.

While most of the protesters across China have focused their frustrations on the government’s anti-COVID policies, some have also demanded the resignation of President Xi.

China’s zero-COVID policy has been a signature policy of President Xi since the pandemic began. The country’s state media has touted the government’s political system under Xi as one of the main reasons China has been so successful in preventing COVID-19 cases and deaths.

The zero-COVID policy aims to isolate every infected person and has helped China to keep its case numbers, as a percentage of its overall population, lower than those in the United States.

As a result, millions of Chinese have been confined to their homes for up to four months. The policy has also had economic ramifications, including affecting global supply chains. Beijing’s target economic growth for 2022 was 5.5%, but by the end of September the country’s economy had grown only 3.9%.

Some information in this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

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Funding Gaps Hinder Family Planning in Nigeria

The U.N. said this month that the world’s population reached 8 billion people, and more than half of the population growth up to 2050 would come from eight countries, five of them in Africa. In that time span, Nigeria is expected to double its population to 400 million people to become the world’s third most populous nation. Experts warn that without proper planning, such growth would be unsustainable, as Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja, Nigeria. Videographer: Emeka Gibson

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For Many Hawaiians, Lava Flows Are a Time to Honor, Reflect

When Willette Kalaokahaku Akima-Akau looks out at the the lava flowing from Mauna Loa volcano and makes an offering of gin, tobacco and coins, she will be taking part in a tradition passed down from her grandfather and other Native Hawaiians as a way to honor both the natural and spiritual worlds.

Akima-Akau said she plans to take her grandchildren with her and together they will make their offerings and chant to Pele, the Hawaiian deity of volcanoes and fire, who her grandfather used to pay reverence to as a kupuna, a word that can mean ancestor.

“This is the time for our kupuna, for our people, and for our children to come and witness what is happening as history is being made every day,” she said, adding that today’s experiences will be added to the next generation’s stories, songs, dances and chants.

For many Native Hawaiians, an eruption of a volcano like Mauna Loa has a deep yet very personal cultural significance. For many it can be an opportunity to feel a connection with creation itself through the way lava gives birth to new land, as well as a time to reflect on their own place in the world and the people who came before them.

“A volcanic eruption is a physical manifestation of so many natural and spiritual forces for Hawaiians,” said Ilihia Gionson, a Hawaii Tourism Authority spokesperson who is Native Hawaiian and lives on the Big Island. “People who are unfamiliar with that should understand that it’s a very personal, very significant thing.”

To be sure, not all Native Hawaiians will feel the need to make a trek to see the lava, but among those who do, some may chant, some may pray to ancestors and some may honor the moment with hula, or dance.

“Some people may be moved to just kind of observe in silence, meditate, you know, commune with their higher power or their kupuna in their own ways,” Gionson said.

Kainani Kahaunaele said as a Native Hawaiian, she feels moved to honor the moment and will take her children, nieces, nephews and close friends as close to the lava flow as possible. There they will chant to Pele.

“Our hookupu will be our voice,” she said, using the Hawaiian word for offering. “It’s not for any kind of show. It’s a connection that we’re making to Pele, to the land, to Mauna Loa.”

Many Hawaiians are practicing family traditions that have been passed down from elders.

Akima-Akau, who lives in Kawaihae on the west side of the Big Island, remembers hearing stories about how her grandfather would fly from Maui or Oahu whenever there was a Big Island lava flow to honor Pele.

“He would jump on a plane and come to Hawaii Island to give his hookupu,” offerings of gin, silver dollars and tobacco, she said.

Her grandfather died before she was born, so she doesn’t know exactly why he chose those items, but he wasn’t alone. She said she grew up knowing others who offered the same items, so that is what her family will bring. She said the children will offer Pele a ti leaf lei.

Hawaiians have different relationships with the spirituality of lava, said Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner Kealoha Pisciotta. To Pisciotta, the lava “brings good mana” — which can mean supernatural or divine power — “and cleanses where it needs cleansing.”

There are also different relationships and connections to Pele, who some refer to as a god or goddess. Pele has great significance in Hawaiian culture, representing all the phenomena related to volcanoes — the magma, steam, ash, acid rain.

“Her primary form is the lava, not necessarily that she is a female, human person. But the image of her function is creation, which happens to be a very feminine image,” said Kekuhi Kealiʻikanakaʻole, a cultural practitioner in Hilo.

Pisciotta calls her “Tutu Pele,” using the word for grandparent, because deities “are more ancient than we are.”

Manua Loa’s spectacular show is drawing thousands of people seeking nighttime views of the lava flowing down the mountain’s northeast flank, clogging the main east-west road on the island. Among them are those coming to pay their respects, leaving altars or shrines along the roadway.

Cultural practitioners like Pisciotta want lava gawkers to be mindful of those who are chanting, praying or gathering in ceremonies amid the eruption: “Give them some space and respect.”

“If a person doing something wants to invite somebody to participate or watch, there will be an invitation,” said Gionson, the tourism official. “And if not, respect that and keep a respectful distance.”

So far, the tourism authority hasn’t received any complaints about people getting in the way of cultural practices, he said, adding that the agency focuses on educating tourists in general about being respectful and behaving appropriately when visiting the islands.

Kahaunaele, who teaches Hawaiian language and music at the University of Hawaii’s Hilo campus and planned to gather with her family on Thursday night, knows that visitors to the island might be curious when they see and hear her family chanting.

“Don’t film us. Don’t even ask for permission, just don’t,” she said. “That even goes for locals. Don’t infringe upon anybody else’s moment.”

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Prayers? Bombs? Hawaii History Shows Stopping Lava Not Easy

Prayer. Bombs. Walls. Over the decades, people have tried all of them to stanch the flow of lava from Hawaii’s volcanoes as it lumbered toward roads, homes and infrastructure.

Now Mauna Loa — the world’s largest active volcano — is erupting again, and lava is slowly approaching a major thoroughfare connecting the Big Island’s east and west sides. And once more, people are asking if anything can be done to stop or divert the flow.

“It comes up every time there’s an eruption and there’s lava heading towards habited areas or highways,” said Scott Rowland, a geologist at the University of Hawaii. “Some people say, ‘Build a wall’ or ‘Board up,’ and other people say, ‘No, don’t!”

Humans have rarely had much success stopping lava and, despite the world’s technological advances, doing so is still difficult and dependent on the force of the flow and the terrain. But many in Hawaii also question the wisdom of interfering with nature and Pele, the Hawaiian deity of volcanoes and fire.

Prayers to Pele

Attempts to divert lava have a long history in Hawaii.

In 1881, the governor of Hawaii Island declared a day of prayer to stop lava from Mauna Loa as it headed for Hilo. The lava kept coming.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Princess Regent Lili’uokalani and her department heads went to Hilo and considered ways to save the town. They developed plans to build barriers to divert the flow and place dynamite along a lava tube to drain the molten rock supply.

Princess Ruth Ke’elikōlani approached the flow, offered brandy and red scarves and chanted, asking Pele to stop the flow and go home. The flow stopped before the barriers were built.

More than 50 years later, Thomas A. Jaggar, the founder of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, asked U.S. Army Air Services to send planes to bomb a Mauna Loa vent to disrupt lava channels.

Lt. Col. George S. Patton, who later became famous as a general in Europe during World War II, directed planes to drop 20 272-kilogram demolition bombs, according to a National Park Service account of the campaign. The bombs each had 161 kilograms of TNT. The planes also dropped 20 smaller bombs that only had black powder charge.

Jagger said the bombing helped to “hasten the end of the flow,” but Howard Stearns, a U.S. Geological Survey geologist onboard the last bombing run, was doubtful. In his 1983 autobiography, he wrote: “I am sure it was a coincidence.”

According to the park service, geologists today also are doubtful the bombing stopped the lava flow, which didn’t end with the bombing. Instead, the flows waned over the next few days and didn’t change paths.

 

Local advises to go with the flow

Rowland said authorities could use a bulldozer to pile a big berm of broken rock in front of Daniel K. Inouye Highway. If the terrain is flat, then lava would pile up behind the wall. But the lava may flow over it, like it did when something similar was attempted in Kapoho town in 1960.

Rapidly moving lava flows, like those from Kilauea volcano in 2018, would be more difficult to stop, he said.

“It would have been really hard to build the walls fast enough for them. And they were heading towards groups of homes. And so you would perhaps be sacrificing some homes for others, which would just be a legal mess,” he said.

He said he believes most people in Hawaii wouldn’t want to build a wall to protect the highway because it would “mess with Pele.”

If lava crosses the highway, Rowland said officials could rebuild that section of the road like they did in 2018 when different routes were covered. There are no current plans to try to divert the flow, a county official said.

Thinking you should physically divert lava is a Western idea rooted in the notion that humans have to control everything, said Kealoha Pisciotta, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner. She said people need to adjust to the lava, not the other way around.

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Prince William, Like His Father, Prioritizes the Environment

Britain’s Prince William capped a three-day visit to Boston by meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday, ahead of announcing his Earthshot Prize environmental award winners at a gala event.

The Prince of Wales shook hands with Biden and spoke quietly in the winter cold near the water outside of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library and Museum. He also met Caroline Kennedy, the late president’s daughter, and told her that the stories of the Earthshot Prize winners were an inspiration.

William once again paid homage to President Kennedy, “the man who inspired our mission,” and said the “game-changing” solutions were being offered to protect the planet.

Kennedy’s legacy loomed large during the visit by William and his wife, Kate. William named his environmental award the Earthshot Prize, drawing inspiration from Kennedy’s moonshot speech that mobilized the nation in 1962 by declaring astronauts would set foot on the moon before decade’s end.

William became heir apparent less than three months ago with his grandmother’s death, but he was already crowned Britain’s chief environmentalist.

During his visit to Boston, William drew praise for his drawing attention to pollution and climate change and the need to scale up solutions to address them. Those efforts were culminating Friday evening, when the five winners of the royal couple’s Earthshot Prize for environmental innovators were to be announced.

“I just appreciate that they are using platform and publicity to bring attention to meaningful climate work,” said Joe Christo, who is managing director of Stone Living Lab, which researches nature-based approaches to climate adaptation, and was among those who met the royal couple at Boston Harbor on Thursday.

“I do know his dad is a big environmentalist,” he said. “He seems to be doing a great job continuing that legacy.”

The Earthshot Prize offers 1 million pounds ($1.2 million) in prize money to each of the winners of five separate categories: nature protection, clean air, ocean revival, waste elimination, and climate change. The winners and all 15 finalists also receive help in expanding their projects to meet global demand.

The winners were to be announced at Boston’s MGM Music Hall as part of a glitzy show headlined by Billie Eilish, Annie Lennox, Ellie Goulding, and Chloe x Halle. The show will also feature videos narrated by naturalist David Attenborough and actor Cate Blanchett.

William is following in the footsteps of his environmentally minded grandfather Prince Philip — the late husband of Queen Elizabeth II — and more recently his father and Elizabeth’s successor, King Charles III.

In his capacity as prince, Charles was for decades one of Britain’s most prominent environmental voices, blasting the ills of pollution. Last year, he stood before world leaders at a U.N. climate conference in Scotland and suggested the threats posed by climate change and biodiversity loss were no different than those posed by the coronavirus pandemic.

But now that he is king, Charles is expected to be more careful with his words and must stay out of politics and government policy, in accordance with the traditions of Britain’s constitutional monarchy. This year, he did not attend the U.N. climate conference in Egypt.

The caution presents an opportunity for William to step into that role as the royal family’s environmental advocate and speak more forcefully about the issues once associated with his father.

There is no better example than the Earthshot Prize.

“It’s a huge deal to Prince William,” Joe Little, the managing editor of Majesty Magazine. “He knows he can attract attention from the most important people. That really is the core of the Boston trip.”

After attending a welcome event Wednesday at City Hall and then a Boston Celtics game, the royal couple spent much of Thursday hearing about the threats of climate change and solutions in the works.

They got a firsthand look at some innovations at a green technology startup incubator called Greentown Labs, in Somerville. Among them were solar-powered autonomous boats and low-carbon cement.

“Climate change is a global problem, so it’s so important to have global leaders talking about the importance of taking action,” said Lara Cottingham, vice president of strategy policy and climate impact for Greentown Labs.

William and Kate also chatted with Katherine Dafforn, co-founder of Living Seawalls, an Australian company that designs environmentally friendly ocean infrastructure. “For all of us, time is ticking,” William said.

The couple’s first trip to the U.S. since 2014 is part of the royal family’s efforts to change its international image. After Elizabeth’s death, Charles has made clear that his will be a slimmed-down monarchy, with less pomp and ceremony than its predecessors. William and Kate arrived in Boston on a commercial British Airways flight.

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