Month: June 2023

Cocaine Market Booming as Meth Trafficking Spreads, UN Report Says

Cocaine demand and supply are booming worldwide, and methamphetamine trafficking is expanding beyond established markets, including in Afghanistan where the drug is now being produced, a United Nations report said Sunday.

Coca bush cultivation and total cocaine production were at record highs in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, and the global number of cocaine users, estimated at 22 million that same year, is growing steadily, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said in its annual World Drug Report.

Cocaine seizures have, however, grown faster than production, containing the total supply to some extent, the report said. The upper band of the estimated total supply was higher in the mid-2000s than now.

“The world is currently experiencing a prolonged surge in both supply and demand of cocaine, which is now being felt across the globe and is likely to spur the development of new markets beyond the traditional confines,” the UNODC report said.

“Although the global cocaine market continues to be concentrated in the Americas and in Western and Central Europe (with very high prevalence also in Australia), in relative terms it appears that the fastest growth, albeit building on very low initial levels, is occurring in developing markets found in Africa, Asia and South-Eastern Europe,” it said.

While almost 90% of methamphetamine seized worldwide was in two regions – East and Southeast Asia and North America – seizure data suggests those markets have stabilized at a high level, yet trafficking has increased elsewhere, such as the Middle East and West Africa, the report said.

It added that reports and seizures involving methamphetamine produced in Afghanistan suggested the drug economy was changing in that country, where 80% of the world’s illicit opium poppy, which is used to make heroin, is produced.  

“Questions remain regarding the linkages between illegal manufacture of heroin and of methamphetamine (in Afghanistan) and whether the two markets will develop in parallel or whether one will substitute the other,” it added.

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‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ Reclaims Box Office, ‘The Flash’ Drops

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” slung its webs back atop the box office ranks while “The Flash” saw a drop faster than the film’s speedy character. 

The Spidey animated sequel — starring Shameik Moore as the teenage webslinger Miles Morales — reclaimed the No. 1 spot in its fourth week in North American theaters, scoring $19.3 million. The latest number helped the Sony film reach $317.1 million domestically and an impressive $560.3 million worldwide. 

“Spider-Verse” beat out “Elemental,” which took second place for the second week in a row with an estimated $18.5 million. The film held on to the spot after experiencing Pixar’s worst three-day opening last week. 

No other film had such a dramatic drop than “The Flash” with $15.2 million for the big-budget offering. The second week output for the DC and Warner Bros superhero film, starring Ezra Miller, fell off by 72% after opening with a subpar $55 million. 

So far, the numbers “The Flash” has accumulated haven’t measured up for a movie with a $200 million production budget. Some are crediting the film’s struggles to Miller’s off-screen behavior that has included arrests and misconduct. The actor has apologized and sought mental health treatment. 

“The Flash” barely edged out “No Hard Feelings,” starring Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman. The raunchy comedy, which opened in fourth place with $15.1 million, tells a story about a teen’s parents who hired a woman (Lawrence) to date and boost his confidence. 

“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” came in fifth place with $11.6 million in its third week with a total $122.9 million. It placed ahead of Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City,” which did better than expected with $9 million. 

In seventh, “The Little Mermaid” pulled in $8.6 million to bring its total to more than $270 million. 

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday. 

  1. “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” $19.3 million. 

  2. “Elemental,” $18.4 million. 

  3. The Flash,” $15.2 million. 

  4. “No Hard Feelings,” 15.1 million. 

  5. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” $11.6 million. 

  6. “Asteroid City” $9 million. 

  7. “The Little Mermaid,” $8.6 million. 

  8. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” $3.5 million. 

  9. “The Blackening,” $3 million. 

  10. “The Boogeyman,” $2.5 million. 

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Priced Out of Health Care, Some Iraqis Turn to Natural Remedies

When a pharmacist in Iraq told Umm Mohammed her prescription for a skin ailment would cost about $611, she turned to cheaper natural remedies as some of her relatives had done.

In an herbal remedy shop, the 34-year-old mother-of-two found a treatment eight times cheaper. “Pharmacies are a disaster at the moment, poor people turn to medicinal herbs because of the prices,” she said. “Who can afford this? Should one die? So you turn to medicinal herbs.”

Ibrahim al-Jabouri, the shop’s owner and a professor of pharmacology, told Reuters that he is receiving customers suffering from various health issues, such as skin diseases, bowel troubles, colon infections or hair loss.

While some Iraqis choose alternative treatments out of conviction, others have no other choice as they can’t afford the cost of conventional medicines.

“The economic situation the country is passing through means that the cost of medicine is hard to bear, especially for those with a limited income,” said Dr. Haider Sabah, who heads Iraq’s national center for herbal medicine, a regulatory state body affiliated to the Ministry of Health.

Iraq’s health care system, once one of the best in the Middle East, has been wrecked by conflict, international sanctions, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and rampant corruption.

Although public medical services are free of charge, a lack of medicines, equipment and adequate services mean citizens often need to turn to the more expensive private sector.

In recent years, Sabah has seen more herbal centers open in the capital, Baghdad. There are now 460 establishments with a permit to sell herbal medicines, up from 350 in 2020, according to his database.

Standards vary greatly, from shops selling neatly packaged and licensed products in Baghdad’s better-off neighborhoods to more traditional herbologists mixing plants scooped out of jars in front of customers.

“I inherited the job,” said Mohammed Sobhi, who followed in the footsteps of his brother and has sold remedies since the 1980s.

“The ones who can’t afford medicine don’t go to the doctor to begin with,” he added.

But replacing medical prescriptions with herbal products can be dangerous and result in harm for patients if not administered properly, said physician Ali Naser.

He recalled the case of a patient who had replaced his prescription with an herbal treatment and “reached the point of what we doctors refer to as diabetic ketoacidosis and the patient had to be admitted to the ICU,” Naser said.

At the heart of the problem is Iraq’s failure to establish an adequate medical system or regulatory framework for the country’s multitude of health service providers, he added.

According to Sabah, inspection teams monitoring establishments selling herbal medicines have closed down for serious violations since 2019. “Most of the violations detected by the inspection teams are corrected,” he said.

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Investigation of Doomed Submersible Underway After Deep-Sea Catastrophe

The frantic search for a missing submersible craft in the North Atlantic Ocean came to an end Thursday following news of the craft’s destruction at sea. All five aboard the Titan died as they descended toward the shipwrecked remains of the Titanic. Now investigators want to know why. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has the latest.

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In Push for More Black US Players, MLB Hopes Results Are on the Horizon

Zion Rose is well aware that the percentage of Black U.S. players in Major League Baseball has been on the decline for decades.

But the 18-year-old catcher from Chicago, still sweaty from a workout during MLB’s Draft Combine this week at Chase Field in Phoenix, said he’s got some news: That’s not going to be the case for long.

“You’ll see,” he said. “We’re starting to come through.”

Rose was one of more than 300 players of all backgrounds in Phoenix this week to take part in the combine, which featured workouts, interviews and games in an effort to showcase some of the game’s best amateur talent at the high school and college levels before July’s draft. MLB said that approximately 15% of the players in the showcase were Black.

The hope is that the next Aaron Judge, Mookie Betts or Andrew McCutchen will be in that bunch. Possibly several.

A recent study from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at Central Florida found Black U.S. players represented just 6.2% of players on MLB opening day rosters, down from last year’s previous record low of 7.2%. Both figures are the lowest recorded in the study since it began in 1991, when 18% of players were Black. Last year’s World Series was the first since 1950 without a U.S.-born Black player.

There are tangible reasons to believe the percentage of Black players might be on the upswing soon.

Four of the first five players picked in last summer’s amateur draft were Black for the first time ever. Those four were among the hundreds who had participated in diversity initiatives such as the MLB Youth Academy, DREAM Series and the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) program. MLB has also pledged $150 million in a 10-year partnership with the Players Alliance. The nonprofit organization of current and former players works to increase Black involvement at all levels.

Many of those programs started several years ago, and the younger participants are starting to hit draft-eligible age.

Rose is among them. He said the diversity initiatives didn’t just provide exposure to scouts, but also opened a vital pipeline for minority players to connect, share experiences and see faces similar to their own. The catcher said that Black former MLB players and coaches were also in attendance at many of the tournaments, providing role models. He cited Reds pitcher Hunter Greene as a big influence.

“I met most of my best friends at those camps,” Rose said. “Just being able to see people your color playing the game, being able to relate to them, that’s been important.”

Homer Bush Jr. — whose dad played in the big leagues for seven seasons for the Blue Jays, Yankees and Marlins — said baseball is also doing a better job of being social media savvy. The outfielder just finished his junior season in college at Grand Canyon.

Bush said its important that baseball portrays itself as a fun sport. Baseball’s trend of elaborate celebrations for home runs and big hits — like Pittsburgh’s swashbuckling routine — is a good start.

He also said he believes having more Black players in the big leagues should create a snowball effect that brings more young minority players into the game.

“I could talk about it for hours,” Bush said. “But I feel like one of the biggest things is just representation. I had a dad who played in the big leagues, so I had someone to look up to and admire. But most guys — when you click on MLB Network or ESPN — there’s not a ton of Black baseball players.”

Of course, there are other variables to getting more minority players to the big leagues — mainly money and time.

Simply put, developing a big-league ballplayer is usually expensive. There’s the equipment, the costs of joining a travel team and the pricey individual instruction that is sometimes needed — expenses than can easily total thousands of dollars per year. There’s also the time commitment: weekends completely filled with two and sometimes three games each day.

“We took a lot of videos of other players for their parents who couldn’t make it,” said Shaun Rose, Zion’s dad.

Karin Rose, Zion’s mom, said she was fortunate that she has a job as a school nurse, which allowed her to travel with Zion during much of the summer baseball season while Shaun worked at his barber shop. Money wasn’t a huge problem, because both had good jobs and some family members chipped in.

Zion took the additional step of transferring from Brother Rice High School in Chicago to IMG Academy in Florida for his senior season, so he could take advantage of the facilities and year-round baseball weather. He’s ranked by MLB.com as the 144th best prospect in this year’s draft, projecting for roughly the fifth round, where the recommended signing bonus is around $400,000.

“We understood the sacrifice, but it was Zion’s will to be a great player that put us in this position,” Karin Rose said. “We’ve been really blessed with travel ball, lots of support from friends and family.”

Several Black former MLB players were in Phoenix to help with the combine, including Chris Young, who played in the big leagues for 13 seasons and was an All-Star with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2010. He said the sport’s diversity inititaves are a good way to lessen the financial load, but it will never go away completely.

“I don’t think baseball is going to get any less expensive anytime soon,” the 39-year-old Young said. “It’s an expensive game. It was an expensive game even back when I was a kid.”

He also hopes that more Black athletes will choose baseball over football or basketball, sports that have claimed top baseball prospects in the past like Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray. Another of this year’s top prospects — Duce Robinson — is trying to decide between pro baseball or playing tight end at USC.

“We have to make it worth their while,” Young said. “If you’re getting guys like that — I don’t want to overspeak — but you’re getting athletes like Mike Trout. Then it’s just up to each team’s player development.”

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Ambitious Saudi Plans To Ramp Up Hajj Could Face Challenges from Climate Change

Saudi Arabia has ambitious plans to welcome millions more pilgrims to Islam’s holiest sites. But as climate change heats up an already scorching region, the annual Hajj pilgrimage — much of which takes place outdoors in the desert — could prove even more daunting.

The increased number of pilgrims, with the associated surge in international air travel and infrastructure expansion, also raises sustainability concerns, even as the oil giant pursues the goal of getting half its energy from renewable resources by 2030.

Next week, Saudi Arabia hosts the first Hajj pilgrimage without the restrictions imposed during the coronavirus pandemic. Some 2.5 million people took part in the pilgrimage in 2019, and around 2 million are expected this year.

Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s wide-ranging plan to overhaul the kingdom’s economy, known as Vision 2030, 30 million pilgrims would take part in the Hajj and Umrah — a smaller, year-round pilgrimage. That would be an increase of more than 10 million from pre-pandemic levels.

It will require a vast expansion of hotels and other infrastructure in Mecca and Medina, ancient cities already largely obliterated by high-rises and shopping malls. The additional pilgrims will require more long-distance flights, more buses and cars, more water and electricity.

The Associated Press reached out to several Saudi officials with detailed questions but received no response. It’s unclear what, if any, studies the government has done on the environmental impact of the pilgrimage or whether that figures into its plans. And well-intentioned measures, like a high-speed railway network, aren’t enough to remove polluting traffic in and around the holy city.

The trains whip through the arid landscape at top speeds of 300 km/h (186 mph), carrying pilgrims in air-conditioned comfort from Jeddah to Mecca. But they stop several kilometers away from the Grand Mosque, meaning pilgrims must either walk at least an hour or take a bus or car to the holy site. The $19 one-way price from Jeddah’s airport to Mecca may also be out of reach for pilgrims on lower incomes.

The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, and all Muslims who are able to are required to undertake it at least once in their lives. For pilgrims, retracing the footsteps of the Prophet Muhammad is a profound religious experience that wipes away sins, deepens one’s faith and unifies Muslims the world over.

The Saudi royal family’s legitimacy is largely rooted in its custodianship of Islam’s holiest sites and its ability to host one of the largest annual religious gatherings on the planet.

Experts have found that the Hajj both contributes to climate change and will be affected by it in the coming decades as one of the hottest places on Earth gets even warmer.

A study of the 2018 Hajj by experts from Victoria University in Melbourne estimated that the five-day pilgrimage produced over 1.8 million tons of greenhouse gases, roughly the amount New York City emits every two weeks. The biggest contributor was aviation, accounting for 87% of emissions.

Abdullah Abonomi, a Saudi researcher and one of the authors of the study, said Saudi authorities have embraced sustainability as part of Vision 2030, which calls for preserving natural resources in order to attract pilgrims, tourists and businesses.

“Everything has changed,” he said, pointing to the establishment of national centers to coordinate sustainable policies, the creation of an environmental police force to crack down on violations and the integration of sustainability into university courses on tourism.

“If you ask four years ago about sustainability … no one understands what sustainability is,” he said. “But today, everything is going to be better. And I know we are late, but better late than never.”

In the past, he says, cars and buses packed with pilgrims filled the streets around Mecca, belching exhaust into the air, but expansion of the Grand Mosque has led to bigger courtyards and increased pedestrianisation in most of the routes leading to the holy site.

Still, human bottlenecks have replaced traffic, and garbage swirls in clouds of heat. For travel around Mina and Arafat, two crucial Hajj locations, cars and buses remain the two most widespread forms of transport. The journey by foot, in sweltering temperatures, is arduous but can prove faster than four wheels.

In its Hajj ambitions, Saudi Arabia faces managing huge numbers of pilgrims in a rapidly warming world.

During the rituals, pilgrims often walk for hours outside, scale a desert hill known as the Mountain of Mercy, where the prophet is said to have delivered his last sermon, and cast stones at pillars representing the devil in a desert plain. They pack into the Grand Mosque in Mecca to circumambulate the Kaaba. On top of the exertions, the Hajj population skews to the elderly, who are more vulnerable to heat.

On an evening this week around sunset in Mecca, temperatures hovered around 37 degrees Celsius (98 degrees Fahrenheit). The crowds made it feel hotter, stifling any airflow. In a bustling basement supermarket near the Grand Mosque, pilgrims bought handheld fans that spray water on the face and every kind of umbrella.

A 2019 study by experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that even if the world succeeds in mitigating the worst effects of climate change, the Hajj would be held in temperatures exceeding an “extreme danger threshold” from 2047 to 2052 and from 2079 to 2086.

Islam follows a lunar calendar, so the Hajj falls around 11 days earlier each year. In 2030, the Hajj will occur in April, and over the next several years it will fall in the winter, when temperatures are milder.

In recent years, Saudi authorities have installed large awnings and misters around holy sites to cool pilgrims. As temperatures climb, authorities will likely need to step up such measures or introduce new strategies like limiting pilgrim numbers in higher-heat years, the heat stress study concluded.

“People who want to do Hajj should get the opportunity to do it,” said Elfatih Eltahir, one of the study’s authors. “Global warming is going to make it a little bit more difficult — for some years, for some individuals.”

Muslim activists have launched grassroots initiatives aimed at a “green Hajj,” encouraging pilgrims to only make the journey once, to avoid single-use plastics and to offset carbon emissions by planting trees.

The Hajj “can be green and sustainable if there are smart policies and technology to lower the ecological footprint,” said Odeh Jayyousi, a professor at the Arabian Gulf University in Bahrain who researches sustainability and innovation.

The use of biodegradable plastics, reusable tents, and renewable energy would cut down on greenhouse gases, he said. Artificial intelligence could be brought to bear on logistics, streamlining travel and ensuring that planes and busses are full and do not spend too much time idling.

“The young generation are mindful of the trade-offs and the need to change consumption patterns,” Jayyousi said. “Hajj can offer a platform for displaying the best green practices to global audiences.”

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‘Street Vet’ Seeks Out California’s Homeless to Care for Their Pets

An elevated train clangs along tracks above Dr. Kwane Stewart as the veterinarian makes his way through a chain link gate to ask a man standing near a parked RV whether he might know of any street pets in need.

Michael Evans immediately goes for his 11-month-old pit bull, Bear, his beloved companion living beneath the rumbling San Francisco Bay Area commuter trains.

“Focus. Sit. That’s my boy,” Evans instructs the high-energy pup as he eagerly accepts Stewart’s offer.

A quick check of the dog reveals a moderate ear infection that could have made Bear so sick in a matter of weeks he might have required sedation. Instead, right there, Dr. Stewart applies a triple treatment drop of antibiotic, anti-fungal and steroids that should start the healing process.

“This is my son right here, my son. He’s my right-hand man,” an emotional Evans says of Bear, who shares the small RV in Oakland. “It’s a blessing, really.”

“The Street Vet,” as Stewart is known, has been supporting California’s homeless population and their pets for almost a decade, ever since he spontaneously helped a man with a flea-infested dog outside of a convenience store. Since then, Stewart regularly walks the heart of Los Angeles’ infamous Skid Row, giving him a glimpse into the state’s homelessness crisis — and how much they cherish and depend on their pets.

After treating Bear, Stewart hands Evans, a Louisiana transplant, a list of the medicine he provided along with contact information in case the dog needs further treatment. Stewart always promises to cover all expenses.

“It was a good catch,” Stewart said before heading out on his way to the next stop, in West Oakland.

California is home to nearly a third of the nation’s homeless population, according to federal data. About two-thirds of California’s homeless population is unsheltered, meaning they live outside, often packed into encampments in major cities and along roadways. Nationally, up to 10% of homeless people have pets, according to an estimate from the advocacy group Pets of the Homeless. Stewart believes that number is greater.

Homeless shelters often don’t allow pets, forcing people to make heart-wrenching decisions. Stewart sees it as his mission to help as many of them as he can.

A 52-year-old former college hurdler at New Mexico now living in San Diego, Stewart is a lifelong animal lover who grew up in Texas and New Mexico trying to save strays — or at least feed and care for them. He founded Project Street Vet, a nonprofit charity dedicated to helping homeless pets. Stewart funded the group himself for years, saving a chunk of his paycheck before later gaining sponsors and donors.

There’s plenty of heartbreak in Stewart’s work, too. He once performed emergency surgery on a pregnant chihuahua, and the two puppies didn’t make it. But more often than not these pet owners are beyond grateful for Stewart’s kindness. He guesses that maybe 1 in 25 times someone turns down his help.

Stewart hollers “Hello?” outside tents, makeshift structures or campers. He can usually tell there’s a pet if he sees a dog bowl or animal toy. He purposely wears his navy scrub top with his name on it, so no one mistakes him for animal control or other authorities and feels threatened.

“People are reticent, they don’t always know why I’m coming up to them. If they’re going to you to beg or panhandle, it’s different but if you come up on them they don’t know if you’re law enforcement or you have an agenda,” he said, “so I do take it very slow and I’ll announce myself from afar.”

Approaching Misty Fancher to see if her pit bull, Addie – purchased at a nearby gas station for $200 — might need shots, Stewart offers, “Can she have treats so we can make friends?”

“Sometimes I pull over and just talk,” Stewart explained.

Addie is the first pet Fancher has had as an adult and provides the 42-year-old with some comfort that she is safe living in a relatively unstable neighborhood of Oakland.

“She’s a very good girl,” Fancher said. “She keeps a lot of trouble away. She protects me. She’ll bite someone if they act aggressive or anything toward me. She has before. But she just discourages them from even trying.”

Stewart notices a puncture on the dog’s paw to monitor and also gives her a rabies shot, writing out a certificate for Fancher to keep as proof her dog is vaccinated. He leaves her with tablets for de-worming, treatments for fleas and ticks and — as usual — his contact information.

A little while later, Stewart stops on the outskirts of a park nearby. He walks the perimeter and encounters an RV owned by Eric Clark, who has lived in the same downtown spot for seven years. He has a male bulldog, pregnant pit bull and another pregnant Doberman.

“It’s hard to get to the vet,” Clark said. “I appreciate you. They’re family.”

Stewart is happy he can make a small difference like this with a largely misunderstood community. He strives to treat every person on the streets with the same professionalism and care as he would a patient at his veterinary clinic. His mantra: no judgment, just help.

“They live in the shadows. They live amongst us but not with us,” he said. ” … It is really rewarding. It gets to you a little bit. When they tear up about the tough times they’ve had, you try to care for them, support them.”

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Europe Repurposes Churches as Faithful Dwindle

The confessionals where generations of Belgians admitted their sins stood stacked in a corner of what was once Sacred Heart Church, proof the stalls — as well as the Roman Catholic house of worship — had outlived their purpose.

The building is to close for two years while a cafe and concert stage are added as part of the plans to turn it into “a new cultural hot spot in the heart of Mechelen,” almost within earshot of where Belgium’s archbishop lives. Around the corner, a former Franciscan church is now a luxury hotel where music star Stromae spent his wedding night amid the stained-glass windows.

Across Europe, the continent that nurtured Christianity for most of two millennia, churches, convents and chapels stand empty and increasingly derelict as faith and church attendance shriveled over the past half century.

“That is painful. I will not hide it. On the other hand, there is no return to the past possible,” Mgr. Johan Bonny, bishop of Antwerp, told the Associated Press. Something needs to be done and now, ever more of the once-sacred structures are repurposed for anything from clothes shops and climbing walls to nightclubs.

It is a phenomenon seen over much of Europe’s Christian heartland from Germany to Italy and many nations in between. It really stands out in Flanders, in northern Belgium, which has some of the greatest cathedrals on the continent and the finest art to fill them. If only it had enough faithful. A 2018 study from the PEW research group showed, in Belgium, that of the 83% that say they were raised Christian, only 55% still consider themselves so. Only 10% of Belgians still attended church regularly.

Nowadays, visiting international choirs may find that their singers outnumber the congregation.

On average, every one of the 300 towns in Flanders has about six churches and often not enough faithful to fill a single one. Some become eyesores in city centers, their maintenance a constant drain on finances.

Mechelen, a town of 85,000 just north of Brussels is the Roman Catholic center of Belgium. It has two dozen churches, several huddled close to St. Rumbold’s cathedral with its UNESCO World Heritage belfry tower. Mayor Bart Somers has been working for years to give many of the buildings a different purpose.

“In my city we have a brewery in a church, we have a hotel in a church, we have a cultural center in a church, we have a library in a church. So we have a lot of new destinations for the churches,” said Somers, who as Flemish regional minister is also involved in repurposing some 350 churches spread across the densely populated region of 6.7 million.

A landmark repurposing project in Belgium was Martin’s Patershof hotel in Mechelen, where the interior of the church was gutted to create rooms where the beds have headboards resembling organ pipes and a breakfast room next to the altar where wafers of gold leaf hover overhead.

“We often hear that people come here to relax and enjoy the silence of its former identity,” said hotel manager Emilie De Preter.

With its understated luxury, it offers contemplation, and more.

“In the hotel, people sleep in a church, maybe have sex in a church. So you could say: ethically, is it a good idea to have a hotel in a church? I don’t have so many hesitations,” said Somers. “I am more concerned about the actual architectural value.”

The design value is especially clear at St. Anthony of Padua church in Brussels, also known as Maniak Padoue climbing club these days, where the multicolored hand and footholds on the wall now compete with the stained glass as the prime multicolored attraction.

“The stained glass brings a real shimmering and warm light to the venue when the sun goes through it, so we can really feel the presence of the remains of the church,” said Kyril Wittouck, the co-founder of the club. “The altar is still in place, so we are surrounded by remains and it reminds us where we actually are.”

Also in Brussels, the Spirito night club has taken over a deconsecrated Anglican church and has a drawing of a priest kissing a nun as its logo.

It is not exactly what Bishop Bonny had in mind.

Even if Roman Catholic religion is on the wane, a sense of the sacral or a need for reflection is also still present in society, whether one is religious, agnostic or atheist. And the aura of tranquility emanating from a church is hard to match. So for Bonny, there is no reason to turn churches into supermarkets or discos.

“Those are places for contemplation. And is that not exactly that the care of the church should be about?” he said. Bonny thinks the most successful and gratifying repurposing has been the handing over to other Christian communities, be they Coptic or Eastern European.

At his office, though, he can get weary just looking at the procession of suitors for empty Roman Catholic buildings. His heart is heavy when a real estate agent shows up.

“They see possibilities. And you cannot believe, suddenly, how pious they can become when a financial opportunity presents itself. Suddenly they are more devout than a nun,” he said.

Knowing the winding history of Christianity over centuries, Bonny takes the long view, since the near future does not look bright.

“Every 300 years we nearly had to start again,” he said. “Something new, I’m sure, will happen. But it takes time.”

At the Martin’s Patershof, there is a condition that the church can reclaim the building if it is needed again, said De Preter. The hotel elements were built on steel beams and could be totally disassembled and taken out again.

“If the church, at a certain point, wants the building back — which holds a very small chance, probably — it is possible,” she said.

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Want a Climate-friendly Flight? It’s Going to Take a While and Cost You More

When it comes to flying, going green may cost you more. And it’s going to take a while for the strategy to take off. 

Sustainability was a hot topic this week at the Paris Air Show, the world’s largest event for the aviation industry, which faces increasing pressure to reduce the climate-changing greenhouse gases that aircraft spew. 

Even the massive orders at the show got an emissions-reduction spin: Airlines and manufacturers said the new planes will be more fuel-efficient than the ones they replace. 

But most of those planes will burn conventional, kerosene-based jet fuel. Startups are working feverishly on electric-powered aircraft, but they won’t catch on as quickly as electric vehicles. 

“It’s a lot easier to pack a heavy battery into a vehicle if you don’t have to lift it off the ground,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at New York University. 

That means sustainable aviation fuel has become the industry’s best hope to achieve its promise of net zero emissions by 2050. Aviation produces 2% to 3% of worldwide carbon emissions, but its share is expected to grow as travel increases and other industries become greener. 

Sustainable fuel, however, accounts for just 0.1% of all jet fuel. Made from sources like used cooking oil and plant waste, SAF can be blended with conventional jet fuel but costs much more. 

Suppliers are “going to be able to kind of set the price,” Molly Wilkinson, an American Airlines vice president, said at the air show. “And we fear that at that point, that price eventually is going to trickle down to the passenger in some form of a ticket price.” 

With such a limited supply, critics say airlines are making overly ambitious promises and exaggerating how quickly they can ramp up the use of SAF. The industry even has skeptics: Nearly one-third of aviation sustainability officers in a GE Aerospace survey doubt the industry will hit its net zero goal by 2050. 

Delta Air Lines is being sued in U.S. federal court by critics who say the carrier falsely bills itself as the world’s first carbon-neutral airline, and that Delta’s claim rests on carbon offsets that are largely bogus. The Atlanta-based airline says the charges are “without legal merit.” 

Across the Atlantic, a consumer group known by its French acronym, BEUC, filed a complaint this week with the European Union’s executive arm, accusing 17 airlines of greenwashing. 

The group says airlines are misleading consumers and violating rules on unfair commercial practices by encouraging customers to pay extra to help finance development of SAF and offset future carbon emissions created by flying. 

In one case, the group’s researchers found Air France charging up to 138 euros ($150) for the green option. 

“Sustainable aviation fuels, they are indeed the biggest technological potential to decarbonize the aviation sector, but the main problem … is that they are not available,” said Dimitri Vergne, a senior policy officer at BEUC. 

“We know that before the end of the next decade — at least — they won’t be available in massive quantities” and won’t be the main source of fuel for planes, Vergne added. 

Producers say SAF reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80%, compared with regular jet fuel, over its life cycle. 

Airlines have been talking about becoming greener for years. They were rattled by the rise of “flight shaming,” a movement that encourages people to find less-polluting forms of transportation — or reduce travel altogether. 

The issue gained urgency this year when European Union negotiators agreed on new rules requiring airlines to use more sustainable fuel starting in 2025 and rising sharply in later years. 

The United States is pushing incentives instead of mandates. 

A law signed last year by President Joe Biden will provide tax breaks for developing cleaner jet fuel, but one of the credits will expire in just two years. Wilkinson, the American Airlines executive, said that was too short to entice sustainable fuel producers and that the credit should be extended by 10 years or longer. 

The International Air Transport Association, an airline trade group, estimates that SAF could contribute 65% of the emissions reductions needed for the industry to hit its 2050 net-zero goal. 

But very few flights are powered by SAF because of the limited supply and infrastructure. 

Just before the Paris Air Show opened, President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would contribute $218 million toward a $1.1 billion plant to make SAF. 

Many airlines have touted investments in SAF producers such as World Energy, which has a plant in Paramount, California, and Finland’s Neste. 

United Airlines plans to triple its use of SAF this year, to 10 million gallons — but it burned 3.6 billion gallons of fuel last year. 

Some see sustainable fuel as a bridge to cleaner technologies, including larger electric planes or aircraft powered by hydrogen. But packing enough power to run a large electric plane would require a fantastic leap in battery technology. 

Hydrogen must be chilled and stored somewhere — it couldn’t be carried in the wings of today’s planes, as jet fuel is. 

“Hydrogen sounds like a good idea. The problem is the more you look into the details, the more you realize it’s an engineering challenge but also an economics challenge,” Richard Aboulafia of AeroDynamic Advisory, an aerospace consultancy, said at the Paris Air Show. “It’s within the realm of possibility, (but) not for the next few decades.” 

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Upcycling Turns Would-Be Trash into Ice Cream and Pizza

At Tyler Malek’s ice cream parlors, one cook’s trash is another chef’s frosty treat.

The head ice cream maker at the Portland, Oregon-based Salt & Straw uses the whey leftover from yogurt makers in upstate New York to make his lemon curd flavor. For chocolate barley milk, he mixes in the remnants of rice and grains from beer brewing to give it a light and creamy taste.

“Instead of calling this food waste, we need to call it wasted food and start decreasing how much wasting we’re doing,” Malek said.

Malek’s ice cream chain is among those at the forefront of the upcycling movement, the process of creating high-quality products from leftover food. Malek’s shops from the Pacific Northwest to Miami now feature flavors like “Cacao Pulp & Chocolate Stracciatella Gelato,” which is made from leftover cacao pulp from chocolate production that otherwise would have gone to waste.

It’s a trend gaining ground as consumers spend more time reading packaging labels and menu ingredients to learn where their food comes from and how it affects the environment. More than 35 million tons (31 million metric tons) of food are wasted every year in the U.S. — about 40% of the country’s food production — costing the national economy more than $200 billion, according to the Upcycled Food Association.

Upcycled food is becoming increasingly common in cake mixes and veggie chips at natural grocery stores. Ingredients include fruits and vegetables from farms nationwide that are perfectly edible but often rejected by restaurants and grocery stores because of their shape or color, like white strawberries, wilted greens and ugly mushrooms.

The Upcycled Food Association, which will celebrate World Upcycling Day on Saturday, issues an official “Upcycling Certified” seal to qualifying products. These seals, which adorn the new Salt & Straw upcycled flavors, raise awareness with consumers that the company making the food used such ingredients.

The association initially certified about 30 products in 2021 and now has 450 carrying the label.

“A lot of the food that is uneaten or thrown away in our supply chain is actually due to archaic cosmetic standards or sort of perceptions that what we think is edible or quality food,” said Angie Crone, the association’s chief executive. “So this is a mark that you can see on the products wherever you go shopping, to be able to understand how that company is reducing food waste in their supply chain.”

The association’s seal also is featured on all products made by Renewal Mill, an Oakland-based company turning byproducts from plant-based milk into pantry stables like baking flour to reduce waste at the manufacturing level.

“Our first product is the pulp leftover from making soy milk. We turn that into a high fiber gluten-free flour called okara flour,” co-founder Caroline Cotto said. “And then we use that flour to make things like baking mixes and ready-to-eat cookies.”

The company’s okara flour is featured in Salt & Straw’s new “Salted Caramel & Okara Cupcakes” flavor.

The movement isn’t confined to recycled products found in a trendy ice cream store, farmers market or natural grocery. In San Francisco, a restaurant serving pizza and wine focuses on upcycled ingredients such as ugly mushrooms, misshapen peppers and discolored tomatoes, as well as offcuts of meat for menu stars like beef heart meatballs.

“I think so many people think about dumpster diving or using rotten ingredients, but we have this wildly overproductive food system that accounts for a ton of waste,” said Kayla Abe, co-owner of Shuggie’s Trash Pie. “Some people might not read that it’s a beef heart meatball and they just might see meatball. They order it and they’re like, that was the best meatball I’ve ever had in my life.”

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Lean Green Flying Machines Take Wing in Paris, Heralding Transport Revolution

Just a dot on the horizon at first, the bug-like and surprisingly quiet electrically-powered craft buzzes over Paris and its traffic snarls, treating its doubtless awestruck passenger to privileged vistas of the Eiffel Tower and the city’s signature zinc-grey rooftops before landing him or her with a gentle downward hover. And thus, if all goes to plan, could a new page in aviation history be written.

After years of dreamy and not always credible talk of skies filled with flying, nonpolluting electric taxis, the aviation industry is preparing to deliver a future that it says is now just around the corner.

Capitalizing on its moment in the global spotlight, the Paris region is planning for a small fleet of electric flying taxis to operate on multiple routes when it hosts the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games next summer. Unless aviation regulators in China beat Paris to the punch by greenlighting a pilotless taxi for two passengers under development there, the French capital’s prospective operator — Volocopter of Germany — could be the first to fly taxis commercially if European regulators give their OK.

Volocopter CEO Dirk Hoke, a former top executive at aerospace giant Airbus, has a VVIP in mind as his hoped-for first Parisian passenger — none other than French President Emmanuel Macron.

“That would be super amazing,” Hoke said, speaking this week at the Paris Air Show, where he and other developers of electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft — or eVTOLs for short — competed with industry heavyweights for attention.

“He believes in the innovation of urban air mobility,” Hoke said of Macron. “That would be a strong sign for Europe to see the president flying.”

But with Macron aboard or not, those pioneering first flights would still be just small steps for the nascent industry that has giant leaps to make before flying taxis are muscling out competitors on the ground.

The limited power of battery technology restricts the range and number of paying passengers they can carry, so eVTOL hops are likely to be short and not cheap at the outset.

And while the vision of simply beating city traffic by zooming over it is enticing, it also is dependent on advances in airspace management. Manufacturers of eVTOLs aim in the coming decade to unfurl fleets in cities and on more niche routes for luxury passengers, including the French Riviera. But they need technological leaps so flying taxis don’t crash into each other and all the other things already congesting the skies or expected to take to them in very large numbers — including millions of drones.

Starting first on existing helicopter routes, “we’ll continue to scale up using AI, using machine-learning to make sure that our airspace can handle it,” said Billy Nolen of Archer Aviation Inc. It aims to start flying between downtown Manhattan and Newark’s Liberty Airport in 2025. That’s normally a 1-hour train or old-fashioned taxi ride that Archer says its sleek, electric 4-passenger prototype could cover in under 10 minutes.

Nolen was formerly acting head of the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. regulator that during his time at the agency was already working with NASA on technology to safely separate flying taxis. Just as Paris is using its Olympic Games to test flying taxis, Nolen said the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics offer another target for the industry to aim for and show that it can fly passengers in growing numbers safely, cleanly and affordably.

“We’ll have hundreds, if not thousands, of eVTOLs by the time you get to 2028,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press at the Paris show.

The “very small” hoped-for experiment with Volocopter for the Paris Games is “great stuff. We take our hats off to them,” he added. “But by the time we get to 2028 and beyond … you will see full-scale deployment across major cities throughout the world.”

Yet even on the cusp of what the industry portrays as a revolutionary new era kicking off in the city that spawned the French Revolution of 1789, some aviation analysts aren’t buying into visions of eVTOLs becoming readily affordable, ubiquitous and convenient alternatives to ride-hailing in the not-too-distant future.

And even among eVTOL developers who bullishly talked up their industry’s prospects at the Paris show, some predicted that rivals will run dry of funding before they bring prototypes to market.

Morgan Stanley analysts estimate the industry could be worth $1 trillion by 2040 and $9 trillion by 2050 with advances in battery and propulsion technology. Almost all of that will come after 2035, analysts say, because of the difficulty of getting new aircraft certified by U.S. and European regulators.

“The idea of mass urban transit remains a charming fantasy of the 1950s,” said Richard Aboulafia of AeroDynamic Advisory, an aerospace consultancy.

“The real problem is still that mere mortals like you and I don’t get routine or exclusive access to $4 million vehicles. You and I can take air taxis right now. It’s called a helicopter.”

Still, electric taxis taking to Paris’ skies as Olympians are going faster, higher and stronger could have the power to surprise — pleasantly so, Volocopter hopes.

One of the five planned Olympic routes would land in the heart of the city on a floating platform on the spruced-up River Seine. Developers point out that ride-hailing apps and E-scooters also used to strike many customers as outlandish. And as with those technologies, some are betting that early adopters of flying taxis will prompt others to try them, too.

“It will be a total new experience for the people,” said Hoke, Volocopter’s CEO. “But twenty years later someone looks back at what changed based on that and then they call it a revolution. And I think we are at the edge of the next revolution.”

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Canada Opens Investigation Into Submersible Implosion

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has opened an investigation into the implosion of the Titan, the underwater sea vessel that imploded with five people onboard as it was traveling to the wreckage of the Titanic, the British ocean liner that sank in the North Atlantic in 1912 after striking an iceberg.

The submersible vessel was the property of OceanGate Expeditions, a U.S.-based company. Its support ship, Polar Prince, however, is a Canadian-flagged ship.

“The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is launching an investigation into the fatal occurrence involving the Canadian-flagged vessel Polar Prince and the privately operated submersible Titan,” the board said in a statement Friday, raising questions about the safety of the ill-fated excursion. The board said a team of investigators has been sent to St. John’s, Newfoundland, to gather information and conduct interviews.

U.S. officials said they too, were opening an investigation.

“The U.S. Coast Guard has declared the loss of the Titan submersible to be a major marine casualty and will lead the investigation. The NTSB has joined the investigation and will contribute to their efforts. The USCG is handling all media inquiries related to this investigation,” the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said Friday in a tweet.

The Polar Prince lost contact with the Titan an hour and 45 minutes after the submersible began its descent Sunday.

Responders rushed equipment to where remains of the Titan were found. Five major fragments of the 6.7-meter Titan were located in the debris field left from its disintegration, including the vessel’s tail cone and two sections of the pressure hull, U.S. Coast Guard officials said. No mention was made of whether human remains were sighted.

OceanGate Expeditions said in a statement the five people on the vessel were company CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

Since the submersible went missing with an approximately four-day air supply, questions about it its safety have grown.

“I know there are also a lot of questions about how, why and when did this happen,” said Rear Adm. John Mauger of the First Coast Guard District. “Those are questions we will collect as much information as we can about now.”

According to an Associated Press report, David Lochridge, a former OceanGate director of marine operations, raised questions in 2018 about the methods the company used to insure the structural viability of the hull.

Filmmaker James Cameron, who directed the 1997 Academy Award-winning film Titanic and who has made several dives to the ocean liner’s wreckage aboard other deep-sea submersibles, said in an interview with the BBC that he was sure an “extreme catastrophic event” had happened when he heard the submersible had lost communication and navigation.

“For me, there was no doubt,” he said.

He told the BBC the news about the air supply and underwater noises were a “prolonged and nightmarish charade” to provide false hope to the families of the passengers. Cameron said that once a remotely operated vehicle reached the depth of the vessel, it was likely to be found “within hours … probably within minutes.”

Arthur Loibl, a passenger on the Titan two years ago, described his trip to the Titanic as a “kamikaze operation.” The retired German businessman said, “Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other.”

Scientist and journalist Michael Guillen, who survived an expedition in 2000 that ran into some challenges, said, “We need to stop, pause and ask this question, why do you want to go to the Titanic and how do you get there safely?”

Some information is from The Associated Press and Reuters.

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Declassified US Intelligence Answers Few Questions on COVID-19 Origins

Newly declassified intelligence on the origins of the coronavirus pandemic appears to cast doubt on theories that the outbreak that killed millions around the world began at a research laboratory in Wuhan, China.

A report issued late Friday by U.S. intelligence agencies and shared with members of Congress said that despite concerns about biosafety measures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and despite its history of work with coronaviruses, there is no intelligence that indicates COVID-19 was present in the lab before the outbreak.

“We continue to have no indication that the WIV’s pre-pandemic research holdings included SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID pandemic,” according to the report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The report further states that the available evidence indicates the lab did not get possession of the COVID-19 virus until late December 2019, “when WIV researchers isolated and identified the virus from samples from patients diagnosed with pneumonia of unknown causes.”

The newly declassified intelligence also seems to reject concerns that one of a handful of researchers at the lab who fell ill in November 2019 might have been patient zero.

“This information neither supports nor refutes either hypothesis of the pandemic’s origins,” the report said. “The researchers’ symptoms could have been caused by a number of diseases and some of the symptoms were not consistent with COVID-19.”

Yet despite the lack of evidence to support the idea that the COVID-19 pandemic originated at the lab in Wuhan, the U.S. intelligence report makes clear that neither of the leading theories – natural transmission from animals or a lab incident – can be ruled out.

“All [U.S. intelligence] agencies continue to assess that both a natural and laboratory-associated origin remain plausible hypotheses to explain the first human infection,” the report said.

And it said almost all intelligence agencies assess the virus “was not genetically engineered,” while noting that while “most agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not laboratory-adapted; some are unable to make a determination.”

As for how the pandemic did start, there is less agreement.

The National Intelligence Council and four of the intelligence agencies continue to assess patient zero contracted SARS-CoV-2 as the result of exposure to an infected animal.

The FBI announced this past February that its analysts assess with “moderate confidence” that the pandemic began at the research lab in Wuhan, China.

Intelligence analysts at the Department of Energy have concluded, although with “low confidence,” that the virus spread as a result of a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Two other intelligence agencies, including the CIA, have not been able to determine a precise origin for the pandemic.

The new disclosure by the U.S. intelligence community comes three months after President Joe Biden signed legislation ordering the agencies to declassify as much information as possible about the pandemic’s origins.

But the newly declassified information, in some ways, reflects few changes from the initial intelligence assessments shared in 2020, when U.S. agencies said that their information supported “the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified,” but that more work was needed to determine how the initial transmission of the virus took place.

Since the World Health Organization first declared a global health emergency in January 2020, COVID-19 has killed nearly 7 million people worldwide, with some officials suggesting the true death toll could be as high as 20 million.

Chinese health officials have repeatedly defended their handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, criticizing any suggestions that they should have shared more information sooner as “offensive and disrespectful.”

As recently as March, leading U.S. intelligence officials noted collecting additional information on the COVID-19 virus has been difficult due, in part, to China’s refusal to cooperate.

In a statement late Friday, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic praised the newly declassified report, saying, “The Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have some serious explaining to do.”

“Everyone deserves to know the truth, and the declassification of this report is a promising step toward full transparency,” said Republicans Mike Turner and Brad Wenstrup.

“Based on the classified information that we received, we suspected right away that the coronavirus was not a natural phenomenon,” they added. “We’ve been pushing for years to make this information available for all to see.” 

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Indian PM Modi Wraps Up Washington Trip With Appeal to Tech CEOs 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with U.S. and Indian technology executives in Washington on Friday, the final day of a state visit where he agreed to new defense and technology cooperation and addressed challenges posed by China. 

U.S. President Joe Biden rolled out the red carpet for Modi on Thursday, declaring after about 2-1/2 hours of talks that their countries’ economic relationship was “booming.” Trade has more than doubled over the past decade. 

Biden and Modi gathered with CEOs including Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella. 

Also present were Sam Altman of OpenAI, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, and Indian tech leaders including Anand Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra Group, and Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, the White House said. 

“Our partnership between India and the United States will go a long way, in my view, to define what the 21st century looks like,” Biden told the group, adding that technological cooperation would be a big part of that partnership. 

Observing that there were a variety of tech companies represented at the meeting from startups to well established firms, Modi said: “Both of them are working together to create a new world.” 

Modi, who has appealed to global companies to “Make in India,” will also address business leaders at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. The CEOs of top American companies, including FedEx, MasterCard and Adobe, are expected to be among the 1,200 participants.  

Not ‘about China’ 

The backdrop to Modi’s visit is the Biden administration’s attempts to draw India, the world’s most populous country at 1.4 billion and its fifth-largest economy, closer amid its growing geopolitical rivalry with Beijing. 

Modi did not address China directly during the visit, and Biden mentioned China only in response to a reporter’s question, but a joint statement included a pointed reference to the East and South China seas, where China has territorial disputes with its neighbors. 

Farwa Aamer, director for South Asia at the Asia Society Policy Institute, in an analysis note described that as “a clear signal of unity and determination to preserve stability and peace in the region.” 

Alongside agreements to sell weapons to India and share sensitive military technology, announcements this week included several investments from U.S.-firms aimed at spurring semiconductor manufacturing in India and lowering its dependence on China for electronics. 

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the challenges presented by China to both Washington and New Delhi were on the agenda but insisted the visit “wasn’t about China.” 

“This wasn’t about leveraging India to be some sort of counterweight. India is a sovereign, independent state,” Kirby said at a news briefing, adding that Washington welcomes India becoming “an increasing exporter of security” in the Indo-Pacific. 

“There’s a lot we can do in the security front together. And that’s really what we’re focused on,” Kirby said.  

Some political analysts question India’s willingness to stand up to Beijing over Taiwan and other issues, however. Washington has also been frustrated by India’s close ties with Russia while Moscow wages war in Ukraine.  

Diaspora ties 

Modi attended a lunch on Friday at the State Department with Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Asian American to hold the No. 2 position in the White House, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. 

In a toast, Harris spoke of her Indian-born late mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who came to the United States at age 19 and became a leading breast cancer researcher. 

“I think about it in the context of the millions of Indian students who have come to the United States since, to collaborate with American researchers to solve the challenges of our time and to reach new frontiers,” Harris said. 

Modi praised Gopalan for keeping India “close to her heart” despite the distance to her new home, and he called Harris “really inspiring.” 

On Friday evening, Modi will address members of the Indian diaspora, many of whom have turned out at events during the visit to enthusiastically fete him, at times chanting “Modi! Modi! Modi!” despite protests from others. 

Activists have called for the Biden administration to publicly call out what they describe as India’s deteriorating human rights record under Modi, citing allegations of abuse of Indian dissidents and minorities, especially Muslims. Modi leads the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and has held power since 2014. 

Biden said he had a “straightforward” discussion with Modi about issues including human rights, but U.S. officials emphasize that it is vital for Washington’s national security and economic prosperity to engage with a rising India. 

Asked during a rare press conference on Thursday what he would do to improve the rights of minorities including Muslims, Modi insisted “there is no space for any discrimination” in his government.

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Carter Center Celebrates Elimination of Trachoma in Mali

In May, the World Health Organization certified that the countries of Benin and Mali eliminated trachoma as a public health problem, the fifth and sixth African countries to do so. As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, while the Carter Center is celebrating the milestone in Mali, its work in eliminating and eradicating trachoma in Ethiopia, Niger, South Sudan and Sudan continues.

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Carter Center Celebrates Trachoma Elimination Milestone in Mali 

The Carter Center was already a decade into its fight against Guinea worm globally when former President Jimmy Carter and his nonprofit took on another neglected tropical disease in the African nation of Mali.

“From 1996 to 1998, it was estimated about 85,000 to 90,000 people would go blind from trachoma,” said Kelly Callahan, director of the Carter Center’s trachoma control program. “Twenty-five[%] to 50% of the children between the ages of 1 and 9, in all areas of Mali, suffered from the beginning stages of this disease.”

It was a statistic Callahan said troubled Carter.

“The Hilton Foundation asked President Carter and the Carter Center if we would be willing to consider working on sanitation and water to combat this disease called trachoma in Mali and Niger,” she said. The nonprofit foundation has been working to prevent avoidable blindness for more than 20 years.

The Carter Center set a goal of eliminating the disease in both countries. Trachoma can be transmitted through infected discharge from the eyes and nose.

“This disease is preventable,” Callahan explained to VOA during a recent Skype interview. It is “a bacterial infection that stems from access, or lack of access, to water and sanitation, poor living conditions, socioeconomically stressed populations.”

Since 1998, the Carter Center and its partners have funded and staffed programs with host nations to develop widespread strategies to treat and prevent infections, even during Mali’s recent armed conflict and continuing instability.

In May, the World Health Organization certified that the countries of Benin and Mali had eliminated trachoma as a public health problem. Six countries in Africa have reached that milestone.

The Carter Center believes its program in Mali has helped avert blindness in more than 5 million people, and the antibiotics used to combat trachoma also help prevent infant mortality, the center said.

“The elimination of trachoma as a public health problem is no less than Herculean,” Callahan told VOA.

Sadi Moussa, the Carter Center’s senior representative in Mali who spoke to VOA via Skype, said he believed the success of his organization’s program to eliminate trachoma could boost efforts to combat other neglected tropical diseases, like Guinea worm.

“Working in an unstable country like this is really challenging for everyone,” Moussa said. “This will also help us with donors to show them that we are serious in what we are doing, and we can convince them to get more resources.”

While Carter has retired from public life and is receiving hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia, Callahan said the center keeps him up to date on the status of its health programs, including recent developments in Mali.

“We heard that President Carter was thrilled beyond belief, so we’re very excited that he knows,” Callahan said, adding that while Mali’s elimination milestone is important, the Carter Center’s work in Africa is far from over.

“Currently, we work in five countries, including Mali. Those countries have the worst known trachoma in the world and are also areas of severe challenges and insecurity and are areas of conflict,” she said.

The World Health Organization said trachoma remains in 23 countries throughout Africa, with approximately 105 million people on the continent living in areas at high risk for infection. 

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Four Ukrainians Intern at New York’s Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera in New York not only organizes concerts and campaigns to support Ukraine but also has offered four Ukrainians an internship. Iryna Solomko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.

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Big Names in Fashion, Tech, Entertainment Attend DC Dinner for India’s Modi

Titans of business, fashion, entertainment and more made the guest list for Thursday’s big White House dinner in honor India’s Narendra Modi, with the likes of designer Ralph Lauren, filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan and tennis legend Billie Jean King rubbing shoulders with tech leaders from Apple, Google and Microsoft. 

Shyamalan powered past reporters as he arrived, declaring it was “lovely” to be at the White House. Lauren revealed he’d designed first lady Jill Biden’s off-shoulder green gown for the occasion, calling her style “chic and elegant.” And violinist Joshua Bell, part of the after-dinner entertainment, said the evening was a “little different than anything I’ve done before.” 

“I’ll skip out and practice for half an hour” during dinner, he reported. 

Saris and sequins were prominent among those attending the splashy event, with a guest list of about 400 names heavy with prominent Indian Americans. Politicians of both parties also made the cut, notably including Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise. 

Other notables on the guest list included social media influencer Jay Shetty, big Democratic donors including Florida lawyer John Morgan and civil rights activist Martin Luther King III. The CEO contingent included Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella. 

Guests were to dine on a plant-based menu of millet, mushrooms and strawberry shortcake, catering to the vegetarian tastes of the prime minister. For guests wanting something more, there was roast sea bass available on request. 

Despite deep differences over human rights and India’s stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine, President Joe Biden extended to Modi the administration’s third invitation for a state visit. It included the state dinner, a high diplomatic honor that the U.S. reserves for its closest allies. 

Biden hopes all the pomp and attention being lavished on Modi — from the thousands who gathered on the White House lawn to cheer his arrival in the morning to the splashy dinner at the end of the day — will help him firm up relations with the leader of a country the U.S. believes will be a pivotal force in Asia for decades to come. 

Guests were riding trolley cars down to a pavilion erected on the White House south grounds decorated in the green and saffron colors of India’s flag. 

Despite concerns about backsliding on democracy in India, Representative Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said she was attending to send the message that the nation of 1.4 billion people is important and “we must call out some of the real issues that are threatening the viability of democracy in all of our countries.” 

A group of more than 70 lawmakers, organized by Jayapal, wrote to Biden this week urging him to raise concerns about the erosion of religious, press and political freedoms with Modi. 

Jayapal, who praised Modi’s leadership skills, told The Associated Press earlier that Modi “has the ability to move India and the people in his party back to the values that we have held so dear as a country.” 

Pichai said he looked forward to the dinner as “an exciting time for U.S.-India relations.” 

“I think we have two countries which have a lot of shared foundations, large democratic systems and values,” Pichai said earlier Thursday in an interview. He cited technology as one area of mutual interest between the nations. “So I think it’s an exciting opportunity. I’m glad there is a lot of investment in a bilateral relationship.” 

Jill Biden enlisted California-based chef Nancy Curtis to help in the kitchen. Curtis specializes in plant-based cooking and said the menu “showcases the best of American cuisine seasoned with Indian elements and flavors.” She said she used millet because India is leading an international year of recognition for the grain. 

The dinner featured a salad of marinated millet, corn and compressed watermelon, stuffed Portobello mushrooms and saffron risotto, and a strawberry shortcake infused with cardamom and rose syrup. 

Lotus flowers, which are native to Asia and featured in Indian design, were visible throughout the pavilion, along with saffron-hued floral arrangements that differed from table to table. 

“We hope guests feel as if someone has set that table just for them — because we have,” the first lady said as she and her staff previewed the setup. 

After-dinner entertainment was from Bell; Penn Masala, a South Asian a cappella group founded by students at the University of Pennsylvania; and the U.S. Marine Band Chamber Orchestra. 

India was last honored with a state visit in 2009, when President Barack Obama pulled out all the stops for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. More than 300 guests attended what was the first big social event of the new administration. 

But it made headlines worldwide after a celebrity-seeking husband and wife were admitted, even though they were not invited, and were able to interact with both leaders. 

The embarrassing episode led the White House and U.S. Secret Service, which protects the president and the executive mansion, to overhaul its clearance and security procedures. 

 

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