Day: March 24, 2023

A U.S. ban of Chinese-owned TikTok, the country’s most popular social media for young people, seems increasingly inevitable a day after the grilling of its CEO by Washington lawmakers from across the political divide. 

But the Biden administration will have to move carefully in denying 150 million Americans their favorite platform over its links to China, especially after a previous effort by then-President Donald Trump was struck down by a U.S. court. 

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew endured a barrage of questions by U.S. lawmakers who made clear their belief that the app best known for sharing jokes and dance routines was a threat to U.S. national security as well as being a danger to mental health. 

In a tweet, TikTok executive Vanessa Pappas deplored a hearing “rooted in xenophobia.”   

With both Republicans and Democrats against him at Congress, Chew must now confront a White House ultimatum that TikTok either sever ties with ByteDance, its China-based owners, or be banned in America. 

Bipartisan legislation

A ban will depend on passage of legislation called the RESTRICT ACT, a bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate this month that gives the U.S. Commerce Department powers to ban foreign technology that threatens national security. 

When asked about Chew’s tumultuous hearing, spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre repeated the White House’s support of the legislation, which is one of several proposals by Congress to ban or squeeze TikTok. 

The sell-or-be-banned order tears up 2.5 years of negotiations between the White House and TikTok to find a way for the company to keep running under its current ownership while satisfying national security concerns. 

Those talks resulted in a proposal by TikTok called Project Texas in which the personal data of U.S. users stays in the United States and would be inaccessible to Chinese law or oversight. 

But the White House turned sour on the idea after officials from the FBI and the Justice Department said that the vulnerabilities to China would remain. 

“It’s hard for TikTok to prove a negative. ‘No, we’re not turning over any data to the Chinese government.’ Look at how skeptical our European partners are about U.S. companies where we have a strong legal system,” said Michael Daniel, executive director of the Cyber Threat Alliance, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to cybersecurity. 

Presently, the White House’s preferred solution is that TikTok sever ties with ByteDance either through a sale or a spinoff. 

“My understanding is that what has been … insisted on is the divestment of TikTok by the parent company,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday.

Impossible to achieve? 

But that option is riddled with difficulties, with many experts saying that TikTok cannot function without ByteDance, which develops the app’s industry-leading technology. 

“ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok and the golden jewel algorithm at the center of this security debate is a hot-button issue that will not necessarily be solved just by a spinoff or sale of the assets,” said Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities. 

Proving the point, China has ruled out giving the go-ahead for a TikTok sale, citing its own laws to protect sensitive technology from foreign buyers. 

That leaves a ban of TikTok that would undeniably benefit domestic rivals Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube. 

One unknown is whether a death sentence for TikTok will cost Washington politically among voters. 

Through a ban, “a democracy will be taking steps that impede the ability of young Americans to express themselves and earn a livelihood,” said Sarah Kreps, professor of government at Cornell University. 

Does the lawmakers’ grilling of the TikTok CEO minimize the danger of political blowback? 

“I want to say this to all the teenagers … who think we’re just old and out of touch,” said Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Republican. “You may not care that your data is being accessed now, but there will be one day when you do care about it.”
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Florida’s warm weather attracts millions of visitors, including animals that outstay their welcome. Wildlife brought in from somewhere else has seriously damaged the ecosystem in Florida, home to the most severe invasive animal crisis in the continental United States. VOA’s Dora Mekouar has more from Orlando. Camera: Adam Greenbaum Produced by: Dora Mekouar, Adam Greenbaum
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In marking World TB Day, health officials warn the COVID-19 pandemic and multiple global crises are setting back years of progress in fighting tuberculosis and eventually ending the deadly disease.

Tuberculosis, an ancient disease that some say goes back to biblical times, kills more people than any other infectious disease. The World Health Organization says 1.6 million people globally died from TB in 2021 and an estimated 10.6 million people were newly infected.

Tuberculosis – a bacterial infection of the lungs – is a preventable, treatable and curable disease.

Significant inroads have been made in battling tuberculosis, with the WHO saying that TB deaths have dropped by nearly 40 percent globally since 2000. Additionally, the organization reports an estimated 74 million lives were saved through TB diagnosis and treatment.

While acknowledging the promising results, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, said progress in the fight against TB recently has stalled and even been reversed.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and conflicts in many countries have severely disrupted services to prevent, detect and treat TB.”

As a result, he said the “WHO last year reported an increase in TB deaths for the first time in more than a decade” as well as an increase in the number of people falling ill with TB and drug-resistant TB.

He deplored the enormous impact of the ongoing epidemic on families and communities.

“We cannot truly end TB unless we address its drivers.”

Those, he said, included conditions of “poverty, malnutrition, diabetes, HIV, tobacco and alcohol use, poor living and working conditions, stigma and discrimination.”

The WHO says the largest number of new TB cases – 46% – occurred in the Southeast Asian region (or Southeast Asia), followed by the African region with 23% and the Western Pacific with 18%.

While the numbers remain high, WHO Regional Director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti observed that the continent has made progress in recent years in combating TB. For example, she noted that deaths in the region have fallen by 26% between 2015 and 2021.

“We do still face some challenges, notably delayed diagnosis and testing, since 40 percent of people living with TB did not know their diagnosis or the disease was not reported in 2021.

“Moreover, an estimated 1 million people are living with TB in the region, yet to be detected,” she said.

WHO chief Tedros’ five-year flagship initiative on TB, which he launched in 2018, seeks to build on the progress achieved by improving delivery of quality care to people living with TB.

Under the program, the WHO has provided two new TB drugs and 12 new TB diagnostic tests to more than 100 countries.

Tereza Kasaeva, director of the WHO’s global tuberculosis program, said the WHO, for the first time, has recommended “a fully oral, two to three times shorter and more effective treatment, including for the most severe forms of multi-resistant TB.”

Jeff Acebo, a TB and HIV survivor from the Philippines and a member of the WHO’s civil society task force, welcomed the development.

He said for too long, people with multidrug resistant TB “have struggled with painful injections, longer regimens, side effects and catastrophic out-of-pocket costs.

“We strongly urge governments, especially one with [a] high burden of TB, to roll out and accelerate the implementation of the novel six-month all-oral regimen treatment,” which he said “would improve the quality of life” for those suffering from the disease.

Given its success, Tedros said, “we have decided to extend the initiative for a further five years, until 2027 and broaden its scope.”

In 2015, the United Nations set a target date of 2030 to end the global TB epidemic as part of its sustainable development goals. In September, world leaders will meet in New York for the second high-level meeting on TB to invigorate the flagging process.

Tedros said he believes the meeting should be a turning point in the fight against TB – if leaders make real and lasting commitments to invest the financial resources needed to end it.

Lucica Ditiu, executive director of the Stop TB Partnership, echoed those sentiments.

“We have new innovations now to help us save lives—new diagnostic tools, shorter, less toxic treatment regimens and new digital tools,” she said.

“When we add the political muscle that the UNHLM [U.N. high level meeting] will gather to the many dedicated health care professionals already in the front lines,” she said, “ending TB looks increasingly possible.”
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Cameroon and Gabon have stepped up border security after neighboring Equatorial Guinea confirmed a spreading Marburg virus has killed at least nine people. Despite the controls, people are still traveling across the porous borders, raising fears the virus that causes hemorrhagic fever could spread. 

At the government primary school in Kye-Ossi, a town on Cameroon’s southern border with Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, children sing that regular hand washing protects people from diseases.

Mireille Evan, head teacher of the school, said more than 15 children from Equatorial Guinea attended classes in Kye-Ossi on Friday. She said those children were separated from their Cameroonian peers and obliged to wash their hands before attending classes.

Evan said Cameroon’s public health ministry officials informed her that movement across the border was restricted because of an outbreak of the Marburg virus in Equatorial Guinea. She said it is not her duty to stop children from attending classes.

Cameroon’s ministries of basic and secondary education said that several hundred children cross every day from Kie Ntem, an administrative unit in Equatorial Guinea, to study in Kye-Ossi alongside scores of children from Gabon. 

Also, several hundred merchants cross borders to Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon each day to conduct business, according to CEMAC, a regional economic bloc.

Authorities in Equatorial Guinea said the Marburg outbreak has killed nine people, but the World Health Organization said the death toll may be as high as 20.

Cameroon’s public health ministry said Friday that it had held discussions with health officials in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea on ways to stop or reduce the spread of the disease.

Felix Nguele Ngule, governor of Cameroon’s South Region, where Kye-Ossi is located, said surveillance and travel restrictions have been reinforced along the borders. 

“What we can assure the population is that the surveillance system has been activated, health staff are mobilized and even the administrative authorities at the border are equally mobilized to monitor the disease,” he said. “We want to thank the World Health Organization and the Red Coss that have joined us to see into it that that disease should not cross the border and enter our country.”

However, Nguele said the porous borders make it difficult for Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea police to fully control the movement of people.

On February 14, Cameroon’s health ministry reported two suspected cases of Marburg virus in the country after a first deadly outbreak in neighboring Equatorial Guinea.

Gabon’s state broadcaster, RTG, on Friday reported that after the second Marburg outbreak in Equatorial Guinea in less than two months, the government of Gabon reinforced its contingency plan of zero contamination of Marburg virus disease.

RTG reported Libreville had also dispatched a team of technicians to identify an isolation area for possible suspected cases in border areas.

Cameroon and Gabon said civilians should avoid contact with animals and people who have traveled to Equatorial Guinea and make sure people with fever, fatigue, and blood-stained vomit and diarrhea are isolated.

The WHO said Marburg is transmitted to people from fruit bats, spreads among people through bodily fluids, and has a fatality rate of up to 88%. 
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Several African and Latin American countries on Thursday launched a major initiative to restore 300,000 kilometers of rivers by 2030, as well as lakes and wetlands degraded by human activity. 

The “Freshwater Challenge,” led by a coalition of governments that includes Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mexico and Gabon, is the largest river and wetland restoration project in history. 

It aims to restore degraded rivers as long as seven times the Earth’s circumference and an area of wetlands larger than India by 2030, according to a statement from the U.N. Water Conference, which ends Friday in New York City. 

The initiative calls on all governments to set national river restoration targets to restore healthy freshwater ecosystems critical to humanity’s water needs and biodiversity. 

No details were given on how the effort will be funded. 

As water shortages become more widespread globally, driven by overconsumption, pollution and climate change, freshwater ecosystems are among the most threatened on the planet. 

“The clearest sign of the damage we have done — and are still doing — to our rivers, lakes and wetlands is the staggering 83 percent collapse in freshwater species populations since 1970,” Stuart Orr of the World Wildlife Fund said in a statement, adding that the initiative may “turn this around.” 

Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, said: “Healthy rivers, lakes and wetlands underpin our societies and economies, yet they are routinely undervalued and overlooked.” 

“While countries have pledged to restore 1 billion hectares of land, the Freshwater Challenge is a critical first step in bringing a much-needed focus on freshwater ecosystems,” Anderson added. 

Martha Delgado Peralta, Mexico’s undersecretary for multilateral affairs, voiced a similar view. 

“Healthy freshwater ecosystems are central to water and food security, while tackling the climate and nature crises, and driving sustainable development,” she said. 
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