Month: July 2023

The EU is looking to prohibit chemicals deemed unsafe for children — especially ones that disrupt growth hormones — in imported toys under new rules proposed Friday by the European Commission.

China is overwhelmingly the biggest manufacturer of toys imported into the European Union, accounting for 83% of the value of toys brought in in 2021, according to the official EU statistics agency Eurostat.

“Enforcement will be stepped up thanks to digital technologies, allowing unsafe toys to be more easily detected, notably at EU borders,” EU internal market commissioner Thierry Breton said.

The commission’s proposed Toy Safety Regulation aims to address loopholes in existing EU legislation dating from 2009 that dictates safety standards in toys sold across the 27-nation bloc.

It also seeks to update the rules to better address online sales.

A commission statement emphasized that toys bought in the EU are “already among the safest ones in the world.”

But it said more needed to be done, given “the high number of unsafe toys that are still sold in the EU, especially online,” and particularly imported ones.

The proposed revision zeroes in on “chemicals that affect the endocrine system, and chemicals affecting the respiratory system or are toxic to a specific organ” in toys.

The endocrine system comprises glands that produce hormones. In children, chemicals that disrupt its normal operation can affect growth, thyroid functions and puberty, and contribute to diabetes or obesity.

To ensure that all toys sold in the European Union are safe, the commission is suggesting a requirement for importers to procure “digital product passports” that would assist in inspecting shipments.

The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) strongly welcomed the commission’s initiative and noted that if it became EU law “it would be the first time ever — worldwide — that both known and suspected hormone-disrupting chemicals are banned from an entire product group.”

It said a consumer group’s test of babies’ teething toys in May found 11 out of 20 toys released such chemicals.

The head of the European Consumer Voice in Standardisation, Stephen Russell, said: “For years, we and BEUC have criticized the all-too-weak provision of toy safety legislation when it comes to chemicals.

“It is very welcome to see the European Commission now proposes to phase out hormone-disrupting chemicals from an entire product group.”
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Google’s work developing an artificial intelligence tool that would produce news articles is concerning some digital experts, who say such devices risk inadvertently spreading propaganda or threatening source safety. 

The New York Times reported last week that Google is testing a new product, known internally by the working title Genesis, that employs artificial intelligence, or AI, to produce news articles.

Genesis can take in information, like details about current events, and create news content, the Times reported. Google already has pitched the product to the Times and other organizations, The Washington Post and News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal.

The launch of the generative AI chatbot ChatGPT last fall has sparked debate about how artificial intelligence can and should fit into the world — including in the news industry.

AI tools can help reporters research by quickly analyzing data and extracting it from PDF files in a process known as scraping.  AI can also help journalists’ fact-check sources. 

But the apprehension — including potentially spreading propaganda or ignoring the nuance humans bring to reporting — appears to be weightier. These worries extend beyond Google’s Genesis tool to encapsulate the use of AI in news gathering more broadly.

If AI-produced articles are not carefully checked, they could unwittingly include disinformation or misinformation, according to John Scott-Railton, who researches disinformation at the Citizen Lab in Toronto.  

“It’s sort of a shame that the places that are the most friction-free for AI to scrape and draw from — non-paywalled content — are the places where disinformation and propaganda get targeted,” Scott-Railton told VOA. “Getting people out of the loop does not make spotting disinformation easier.”

Paul M. Barrett, deputy director at New York University’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, agrees that artificial intelligence can turbocharge the dissemination of falsehoods. 

“It’s going to be easier to generate myths and disinformation,” he told VOA. “The supply of misleading content is, I think, going to go up.”

In an emailed statement to VOA, a Google spokesperson said, “In partnership with news publishers, especially smaller publishers, we’re in the earliest stages of exploring ideas to potentially provide AI-enabled tools to help their journalists with their work.”

“Our goal is to give journalists the choice of using these emerging technologies in a way that enhances their work and productivity,” the spokesperson said. “Quite simply these tools are not intended to, and cannot, replace the essential role journalists have in reporting, creating and fact-checking their articles.”

The implications for a news outlet’s credibility are another important consideration regarding the use of artificial intelligence.

News outlets are presently struggling with a credibility crisis. Half of Americans believe that national news outlets try to mislead or misinform audiences through their reporting, according to a February report from Gallup and the Knight Foundation.

“I’m puzzled that anyone thinks that the solution to this problem is to introduce a much less credible tool, with a much shakier command of facts, into newsrooms,” said Scott-Railton, who was previously a Google Ideas fellow.

Reports show that AI chatbots regularly produce responses that are entirely wrong or made up. AI researchers refer to this habit as a “hallucination.”

Digital experts are also cautious about what security risks may be posed by using AI tools to produce news articles. Anonymous sources, for instance, might face retaliation if their identities are revealed.

“All users of AI-powered systems need to be very conscious of what information they are providing to the system,” Barrett said.

“The journalist would have to be cautious and wary of disclosing to these AI systems information such as the identity of a confidential source, or, I would say, even information that the journalist wants to make sure doesn’t become public,” he said. 

Scott-Railton said he thinks AI probably has a future in most industries, but it’s important not to rush the process, especially in news. 

“What scares me is that the lessons learned in this case will come at the cost of well-earned reputations, will come at the cost of factual accuracy when it actually counts,” he said.  
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Seven leading tech companies recently agreed to abide by a request from President Joe Biden to develop their artificial intelligence technologies in a safe and transparent way. But are their promises realistic? VOA’s Julie Taboh reports.
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This week President Joe Biden announced additional measures to protect communities from extreme heat that has hit parts of the United States. In Los Angeles, authorities are coping as best they can and trying some innovative ways to beat the heat. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetian
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Arizona’s saguaro cacti, a symbol of the U.S. West, are leaning, losing arms and in some cases falling over during the state’s record streak of extreme heat, a scientist said on Tuesday.

Summer monsoon rains the cacti rely on have failed to arrive, testing the desert giants’ ability to survive in the wild as well as in cities after temperatures above 43 Celsius degrees (110 Fahrenheit) for 25 days in Phoenix, said Tania Hernandez.

“These plants are adapted to this heat, but at some point the heat needs to cool down and the water needs to come,” said Hernandez, a research scientist at Phoenix’s 140-acre (57-hectare) Desert Botanical Garden, which has over 2/3 of all cactus species, including saguaros which can grow to over 12 meters (40 feet).

Plant physiologists at the Phoenix garden are studying how much heat cacti can take. Until recently many thought the plants were perfectly adapted to high temperatures and drought. Arizona’s heat wave is testing those assumptions.

Cacti need to cool down at night or through rain and mist. If that does not happen they sustain internal damage. Plants now suffering from prolonged, excessive heat may take months or years to die, Hernandez said.

Cacti in Phoenix are being studied as the city is a heat island, mimicking higher temperatures plants in the wild are expected to face with future climate change, Hernandez said.
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HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM – Vietnam’s demand that international social media firms use artificial intelligence to identify and remove “toxic” online content is part of an ever expanding and alarming campaign to pressure overseas platforms to suppress freedom of speech in the country, rights groups, experts and activists say.

Vietnam is a lucrative market for overseas social media platforms. Of the country’s population of nearly 100 million there are 75.6 million Facebook users, according to Singapore-based research firm Data Reportal. And since Vietnamese authorities have rolled out tighter restrictions on online content and ordered social media firms to remove content the government deems anti-state, social media sites have largely complied with government demands to silence online critiques of the government, experts and rights groups told VOA.

“Toxic” is a term used broadly to refer to online content which the state deems to be false, violent, offensive, or anti-state, according to local media reports.

During a mid-year review conference on June 30, Vietnam’s Information Ministry ordered international tech firms to use artificial intelligence to find and remove so-called toxic content automatically, according to a report from state-run broadcaster Vietnam Television. Details have not been revealed on how or when companies must comply with the new order.

Le Quang Tu Do, the head of the Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information, had noted during an April 6 news conference that Vietnamese authorities have economic, technical and diplomatic tools to act against international platforms, according to a local media report. According to the report he said the government could cut off social platforms from advertisers, banks, and e-commerce, block domains and servers, and advise the public to cease using platforms with toxic content.

“The point of these measures is for international platforms without offices in Vietnam, like Facebook and YouTube, to abide by the law,” Do said.

Pat de Brun, Amnesty International’s deputy director of Amnesty Tech, told VOA the latest demand is consistent with Vietnam’s yearslong strategy to increase pressure on social media companies. De Brun said it is the government’s broad definition of what is toxic, rather than use of artificial intelligence, that is of most human rights concern because it silences speech that can include criticism of government and policies.

“Vietnamese authorities have used exceptionally broad categories to determine content that they find inappropriate and which they seek to censor. … Very, very often this content is protected speech under international human rights law,” de Brun said. “It’s really alarming to see that these companies have relented in the face of this pressure again and again.”

During the first half of this year, Facebook removed 2,549 posts, YouTube removed 6,101 videos, and TikTok took down 415 links, according to an Information Ministry statement.

Online suppression

Nguyen Khac Giang, a research fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, told VOA that heightened online censorship has been led by the conservative faction within Vietnam’s Communist Party, which gained power in 2016.

Nguyen Phu Trong was elected as general secretary in 2016, putting a conservative in the top position within the one-party state. Along with Trong, other conservative-minded leaders rose within government the same year, pushing out reformists, Giang said. Efforts to control the online sphere led to 2018’s Law on Cybersecurity, which expands government control of online content and attempts to localize user data in Vietnam. The government also established Force 47 in 2017, a military unit with reportedly 10,000 members assigned to monitor online space.

On July 19, local media reported that the information ministry proposed taking away the internet access of people who commit violations online especially via livestream on social media sites.

Activists often see their posts removed, lose access to their accounts, and the government also arrests Vietnamese bloggers, journalists, and critics living in the country for their online speech. They are often charged under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Criminal Code, which criminalizes “making, storing, distributing or disseminating information, documents and items against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.”

According to The 88 Project, a U.S.-based human rights group, 191 activists are in jail in Vietnam, many of whom have been arrested for online advocacy and charged under Article 117.

“If you look at the way that social media is controlled in Vietnam, it is very starkly contrasted with what happened before 2016,” Giang said. “What we are seeing now is only a signal of what we’ve been seeing for a long time.”

Giang said the government order is a tool to pressure social media companies to use artificial intelligence to limit content, but he warned that online censorship and limits on public discussion could cause political instability by eliminating a channel for public feedback.

“The story here is that they want the social media platforms to take more responsibility for whatever happens on social media in Vietnam,” Giang said. “If they don’t allow people to report on wrongdoings … how can the [government] know about it?”

Vietnamese singer and dissident Do Nguyen Mai Khoi, now living in the United States, has been contacting Facebook since 2018 for activists who have lost accounts or had posts censored, or are the victims of coordinated online attacks by pro-government Facebook users. Although she has received some help from the company in the past, responses to her requests have become more infrequent.

“[Facebook] should use their leverage,” she added. “If Vietnam closed Facebook, everyone would get angry and there’d be a big wave of revolution or protests.”

Representatives of Meta Platforms Inc., Facebook’s parent company, did not respond to VOA requests for comment.

Vietnam is also a top concern in the region for the harsh punishment of online speech, Dhevy Sivaprakasam, Asia Pacific policy counsel at Access Now, a nonprofit defending digital rights, said.

“I think it’s one of the most egregious examples of persecution on the online space,” she said.
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NEW YORK — More than 100,000 people in the U.S. have become allergic to red meat since 2010 because of a weird syndrome triggered by tick bites, according to a government report released Thursday. But health officials believe many more have the problem and don’t know it.

A second report estimated that as many as 450,000 Americans have developed the allergy. That would make it the 10th most common food allergy in the U.S., said Dr. Scott Commins, a University of North Carolina researcher who co-authored both papers published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health officials said they are not aware of any confirmed deaths, but people with the allergy have described it as bewildering and terrifying.

“I never connected it with any food because it was hours after eating,” said one patient, Bernadine Heller-Greenman.

The reaction, called alpha-gal syndrome, occurs when an infected person eats beef, pork, venison or other meat from mammals — or ingests milk, gelatin or other mammal products.

It’s not caused by a germ but by a sugar, alpha-gal, that is in meat from mammals — and in tick saliva. When the sugar enters the body through the skin, it triggers an immune response and can lead to a severe allergic reaction.

Scientists had seen reactions in patients taking a cancer drug that was made in mouse cells containing the alpha-gal sugar. But in 2011 researchers first reported that it could spread through tick bites, too.

They tied it to the lone star tick, which despite its Texas-themed name is most common in the eastern and southern U.S. (About 4% of all U.S. cases have been in the eastern end of New York’s Long Island.)

One of the studies released Thursday examined 2017-22 test results from the main U.S. commercial lab looking for alpha-gal antibodies. They noted the number of people testing positive rose from about 13,000 in 2017 to 19,000 in 2022.

Experts say cases may be up for a variety of reasons, including lone star ticks’ expanding range, more people coming into contact with the ticks or more doctors learning about it and ordering tests for it.

But many doctors are not. The second study was a survey last year of 1,500 U.S. primary care doctors and health professionals. The survey found nearly half had never heard of alpha-gal syndrome, and only 5% said they felt very confident they could diagnose it. Researchers used that information to estimate the number of people with the allergy — 450,000.

People with the syndrome can experience symptoms including hives, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, severe stomach pain, difficulty breathing, dizziness and swelling of the lips, throat, tongue or eye lids. Unlike some other food allergies, which occur soon after eating, these reactions hit hours later.

Some patients have only stomach symptoms, and the American Gastroenterological Association says people with unexplained diarrhea, nausea and abdominal pain should be tested for the syndrome.

Doctors counsel people with the allergy to change their diet, carry epinephrine and avoid tick bites.

The allergy can fade away in some people — Commins has seen that happen in about 15% to 20% of his patients. But a key is avoiding being re-bitten.

“The tick bites are central to this. They perpetuate the allergy,” he said.

One of his patients is Heller-Greenman, a 78-year-old New York art historian who spends summers on Martha’s Vineyard. She has grown accustomed to getting bitten by ticks on the island and said she has had Lyme disease four times.

About five years ago, she started experiencing terrible, itchy hives on her back, torso and thighs in the middle of the night. Her doctors concluded it was an allergic reaction but couldn’t pinpoint the trigger.

She was never a big meat eater, but one day in January 2020 she had a hamburger and then a big, fatty steak the following evening. Six hours after dinner, she woke up nauseated, then suffered terrible spells of vomiting, diarrhea and dizziness. She passed out three times.

She was diagnosed with alpha-gal syndrome shortly after that and was told to avoid ticks and to stop eating red meat and dairy products. There have been no allergic reactions since.

“I have one grandchild that watches me like a hawk,” she said, making sure she reads packaged food labels and avoids foods that could trigger a reaction.

“I feel very lucky, really, that this has worked out for me,” she said. “Not all doctors are knowledgeable about this.”
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A 20-year-old, U.S.-funded AIDS relief program that is credited with saving tens of millions of lives around the world may not be reauthorized if conservative and anti-abortion activists are successful in a campaign against it.

The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was launched in 2003 by then-President George W. Bush, and since then it has channeled more than $110 billion in support for the fight against the AIDS epidemic in more than 50 countries around the world.

It has been particularly successful in Western and sub-Saharan Africa, where it helps provide antiretroviral medication to the more than 25 million people who are living with the disease.

The program received $6.9 billion in fiscal 2023. Through its history, the program has typically been reauthorized for five years at a time, in order to provide some certainty about the flow of relief dollars. It was last authorized in 2018. Advocates of the program are calling for a “clean” reauthorization that does not alter the program or introduce uncertainty about the flow of funds.

However, that reauthorization is now in doubt, as conservative lawmakers and activists have expressed concern that the program works with various organizations around the world that, in addition to combating AIDS, provide reproductive health services, including abortion.

‘Radical’ ideology

In a joint letter to key members of Congress this spring, dozens of anti-abortion groups urged lawmakers to reconsider their support for the program unless new rules are put in place that restrict the way it can spend federal funds.

“The American people do not support using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion at home or abroad,” the groups wrote. “For that reason, there exists long-standing precedent not to fund abortion, directly or indirectly, through U.S. foreign assistance. We are concerned that grants from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) are used by nongovernmental organizations that promote abortions and push a radical gender ideology abroad.”

Failure to reauthorize the program would not necessarily kill it, because Congress could still appropriate money for it each year. But it would chip away at the administrative foundation of PEPFAR, leaving it less able to adapt to changing conditions in countries participating in the program, including changes in local laws that affect the provision of specific kinds of aid, and changes in the prevalence of the virus.

Pressuring lawmakers

Several influential conservative organizations, including the Heritage Foundation, Family Research Council and Susan B. Anthony (SBA) Pro-Life America, have said that they oppose a clean reauthorization of the program. They said they would add any vote that renewed the program without changes to their legislative scorecards.

Those scorecards, which track lawmakers’ adherence to the wishes of conservative activist organizations, are influential because a low score can leave a member of Congress open to a reelection challenge from a more conservative rival.

Autumn Christensen, vice president of public policy for SBA Pro-Life America, said in a statement emailed to VOA that her organization believes the Biden administration has “bowed to the pressures of the international abortion lobby and integrated broader sexual and reproductive services (which includes abortion) into their strategic plans.”

Christensen praised legislation proposed by Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican, that would reauthorize PEPFAR for a single year and explicitly deny any funding to organizations that “promote or perform” abortions.

Mexico City policy

Those advocating for a clean reauthorization of PEPFAR point out that it is already illegal under U.S. law for foreign aid funds to be spent on the delivery of abortion services.

A 1973 provision of the Foreign Assistance Act, known as the Helms Amendment, reads, “[N]o foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions.”

That language has, for generations, blocked direct funding of abortion with U.S. aid. However, it has not blocked U.S. aid programs from providing funds to organizations that provide access to abortions using funds from other sources.

Opponents of a clean PEPFAR reauthorization are demanding that stronger anti-abortion protections, such as the “Mexico City policy,” be incorporated into the program.

First adopted in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan’s administration, the policy bars U.S. aid from being disbursed to any organization that provides access to abortion services, even with non-U.S. money.

Since its original introduction, the Mexico City policy has been rescinded by every Democratic presidential administration upon taking office and has been reinstated by every Republican.

Former President Donald Trump not only reinstated the policy early in his presidency, but he strengthened it. By 2019, it was U.S. policy to refuse to provide funds to groups that even spoke in favor of abortion rights or supported other organizations that did.

President Joe Biden reversed Trump’s reinstatement of the policy when he took office in 2021.

Known impacts

Matthew Kavanagh is the director of the Global Health Policy and Politics Initiative at Georgetown Law School’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. He told VOA that the impact of the Mexico City policy is already well-known to public health researchers.

“PEPFAR is one of the most successful and impactful global health programs in the world’s history,” Kavanagh said. But when the Trump administration reinstated the Mexico City policy, “quite a few organizations actually dropped out from being PEPFAR recipients,” he said.

Kavanagh said that many of the organizations that are most experienced at providing the kind of interventions that made PEPFAR successful are local family planning organizations that offer a range of services and counseling, often including abortion.

“Local family planning organizations were no longer allowed to provide HIV prevention programming and to receive PEPFAR funding, and that was a huge loss for the program,” he said.

He also warned against plans to reauthorize the program for just one year, saying that doing so would create damaging uncertainty for organizations serving desperate people.

“Organizations around the world are depending on this for lifesaving programs,” Kavanagh said. “People are not put on HIV treatment for one year, and then taken off. People are on HIV treatment for their lives, and we need to ensure that these programs don’t have to worry that they’re going to be shut down at the end of the year.” 
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The Biden administration on Thursday announced the first cancer-focused initiative under its advanced health research agency. The goal is to help surgeons more easily differentiate between healthy tissue and cancerous cells.

The Precision Surgical Interventions program, which is being launched under the administration’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, will aim to significantly improve cancer outcomes over the next few decades.

In a Thursday statement announcing the initiative, President Joe Biden called the investment “a major milestone in the fight to end cancer as we know it.” The initiative is part of Biden’s “cancer moonshot” initiative.

The hope is that the investment will help doctors develop tools that will remove all cancerous cells while avoiding healthy nerves and blood vessels.

Biden said he eventually wants the cancer death rate to be cut in half.

“Harnessing the power of innovation is essential to achieving our ambitious goal of turning more cancers from death sentences to treatable diseases and — in time — cutting the cancer death rate in half,” he said.

“As we’ve seen throughout our history, from developing vaccines to sequencing the genome, when the U.S. government invests in innovation, we can achieve breakthroughs that would otherwise be impossible, and save lives on a vast scale. ARPA-H follows in that tradition of bold, urgent innovation,” Biden said, using an acronym for his Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health initiative.

“What’s true is that many cancer treatments still start with surgery,” Arati Prabhakar, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, told The Associated Press. “So being really smart and attacking and developing new technology to make that first step better could really revolutionize how we are able to treat cancer for so many Americans.”

Formed in 2022, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health is modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. The military-focused agency played a central role in developing GPS and the internet.

The “cancer moonshot,” as well as the ARPA-H more broadly, are part of the Biden administration’s unity agenda, which “aims to bring people from both parties together to get big things done for the American people,” Biden said in the statement.

In September, ARPA-H will host an event in Chicago for interested researchers with the intent of quickly authorizing projects.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press. 
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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday that it is not too late to “stop the worst” of the climate crisis, but only with “dramatic, immediate” action.

“The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived,” Guterres told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York, where the temperature outside was approaching 86 degrees Fahrenheit before 10 a.m. and set to hit 91 degrees Fahrenheit later in the day.

He spoke as the World Meteorological Organization and the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service released new data confirming July is set to be the hottest month ever recorded.

“According to the data released today, July has already seen the hottest three-week period ever recorded; the three hottest days on record; and the highest-ever ocean temperatures for this time of year,” Guterres said.

The U.N. chief, who has been ringing the alarm bell on the climate crisis since he entered office in January 2017, noted it has been a difficult summer in many parts of the world because of climate-related events, including fires, floods and scorching heat.

“For the entire planet, it is a disaster,” he said. “And for scientists, it is unequivocal – humans are to blame.”

He said the rising temperatures are consistent with all the scientific predictions; the only surprise is how fast it is happening.

He acknowledged progress on renewable energies and positive steps from industrial sectors but warned that none of it is going far or fast enough.

“Accelerating temperatures demand accelerated action,” the U.N. secretary-general said.

Guterres called for ambitious new national emissions reduction targets from G20 countries — as they are responsible for 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions. He urged developed countries to reach net zero emissions as close as possible to the target date of 2040, and emerging economies by 2050.

He also repeated his mantra that there must be a transition away from fossil fuels to renewables.

“And we must reach net zero electricity by 2035 in developed countries and 2040 elsewhere, as we work to bring affordable electricity to everyone on Earth,” the secretary-general noted.

He said countries on the climate “frontlines” — who have contributed the least to the climate crisis — need financial help from developed nations for adaptation and mitigation. Developed countries have committed to contributing $100 billion per year to help developing countries, but they have fallen short. Guterres urged them to honor those commitments.

In September, the U.N. chief will convene a Climate Ambition Summit on the sidelines of the General Assembly high-level week, ahead of November’s two-week long climate review conference — COP28 — in Dubai.
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The World Health Organization on Thursday warned that health threats are surging as the war in Sudan escalates and millions of people, many sick and wounded, flee for safety within Sudan and across borders to neighboring countries where health services are fragile and hard to reach.

The war, which erupted April 15 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, is not contained within the country but has profound regional implications.

The conflict has displaced an estimated 3.4 million people, including 2.5 million inside Sudan. Nearly 760,000 people have been forced to flee as refugees to six neighboring countries, with many people reportedly arriving in poor health, carrying infectious diseases and other afflictions.

The Federal Ministry of Health reports at least 1,136 people have been killed and more than 12,000 injured since the conflict began. “Of course, this is very underreported of the number of casualties,” said Nima Abid, World Health Organization representative in Sudan.

He said the scale of the health crisis triggered by the conflict in Sudan was enormous, noting that the fragile health system in Sudan was unable to cope with the multiple emergencies that exist as “two-thirds of the hospitals in the affected areas are not functional” and are unable to respond to the huge public health needs.

WHO has verified 51 attacks on health facilities since the conflict began, resulting in 10 deaths and 24 injuries and “cutting off access to urgently needed care.”

Abid said that “all the organizational activities have stalled; vector control activities have stalled. Currently, we have a large measles outbreak with more than 2,000 cases and 30 deaths.

“I mean, even before the war, the vaccination coverage was not high,” added Abid, noting that the Blue Nile and White Nile states were the most heavily affected. “So, now we have outbreaks affecting almost 10 states.”

Abid also said he was concerned that cases of malaria, dengue and rift valley fever will rise during the current rainy season, noting that “all these vector-borne diseases are endemic in Sudan” and control measures have stopped.

“We do have an outbreak of cholera in South Kordofan,” he said, “with more than 300 cases and seven deaths. So, all this will have an impact on the health system and public health in Sudan.”

Neighboring Chad is hosting a quarter million Sudanese refugees, and the U.N. expects an equal number will arrive in the country by the end of the year. “This will significantly increase the health needs and exert huge pressure on the available health facilities,” said Jean-Bosco Ndihokubwayo, WHO representative in Chad.

WHO reports around 2,500 people are arriving in Chad every day, many with serious gunshot wounds, while many others arrive sick with infectious diseases, malaria and cholera.

Ndihokubwayo cited malnutrition as the most serious health problem facing people in refugee camps.

“For the time being, we have more than 4,000 children who are suffering from serious malnutrition. Two hundred and fifty children are being hospitalized, 65 dead … and when this is combined with a disease like measles in children who are poorly nourished, it has huge effects as it does with our other current diseases,” he said.

The World Health Organization reports cases of malaria among children under age 5, as well as suspected cases of yellow fever also have been identified among some 17,000 Sudanese who have sought refuge in the Central African Republic (C.A.R.). It added that a suspected cholera outbreak has been reported among many displaced people in northern Ethiopia.

Magdalene Armah, Incident Manager for the Sudan Crisis, WHO regional office for Africa, said the African region has received 65% of the Sudanese population that has fled the country.

She said it was important to establish cross-border operations to ensure that all vulnerable populations are reached with health care. “We want to increase access to health care services by expanding the set-up of emergency teams that are in the various border regions.

“We want to ensure that vaccination campaigns can happen to mitigate further outbreaks. We want to ensure that disease surveillance goes down to the communities,” she said, adding that it was important that humanitarian agencies had the funding to enable it to carry out these vital health projects.

WHO and its partners are working to deliver emergency assistance and medical supplies to people in Chad, as well as in C.A.R., Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan, as swiftly as possible. But WHO says resources are overstretched, so providing aid to those in need is becoming increasingly difficult.
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If the United States imposes more investment restrictions and export controls on China’s semiconductor industry, Beijing will respond in kind, according to China’s ambassador to the U.S., Xie Feng, whose tough talk analysts see as the latest response from a so-called wolf-warrior diplomat.

Xie likened the U.S. export controls to “restricting their opponents to only wearing old swimsuits in swimming competitions, while they themselves can wear advanced shark swimsuits.”

Xie’s remarks, made at the Aspen Security Forum last week, came as the U.S. finalized its mechanism for vetting possible investments in China’s cutting-edge technology. These include semiconductors, quantum computing and artificial intelligence, all of which have military as well as commercial applications.

The U.S. Department of Commerce is also considering imposing new restrictions on exports of artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China, despite the objections of U.S. chipmakers.

Wen-Chih Chao, of the Institute of Strategic and International Affairs Studies at Taiwan’s National Chung Cheng University, characterized Xie’s remarks as part of China’s “wolf-warrior” diplomacy, as China’s increasingly assertive style of foreign policy has come to be known. 

He said the threatened Chinese countermeasures would depend on whether Beijing just wants to show an “attitude” or has decided to confront Western countries head-on.

He pointed to China’s investigations of some U.S. companies operating in China. He sees these as China retaliating by “expressing an attitude.”

Getting tougher

But as the tit-for-tat moves of the U.S. and China seem to be “escalating,” Chao pointed to China’s retaliation getting tougher.

An example, he said, is the export controls Beijing slapped on exporters of gallium, germanium and other raw minerals used in high-end chip manufacturing. As of August 1, they must apply for permission from the Ministry of Commerce of China and report the details of overseas buyers.

Chao said China might go further by blocking or limiting the supply of batteries for electric vehicles, mechanical components needed for wind-power generation, gases needed for solar panels, and raw materials needed for pharmaceuticals and semiconductor manufacturing.

China wants to show Western countries that they must think twice when imposing sanctions on Chinese semiconductors or companies, he said.

But other analysts said Beijing does not want to escalate its retaliation to the point where further moves by the U.S. and its allies harm China’s economy, which is only slowly recovering from draconian pandemic lockdowns.

No cooperation

Chao also said China could retaliate by refusing to cooperate on efforts to limit climate change, or by saying “no” when asked to use its influence with Pyongyang to lessen tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

“These are the means China can use to retaliate,” Chao said. “I think there are a lot of them. These may be its current bargaining chips, and it will not use them all simultaneously. It will see how the West reacts. It may show its ability to counter the West step by step.”

Cheng Chen, a political science professor at the State University of New York at Albany, said China’s recent announcement about gallium, germanium and other chipmaking metals is a warning of its ability, and willingness, to retaliate against the U.S.

Even if the U.S. invests heavily in reshaping these industrial chains, it will take a long time to assemble the links, she said.

Chen said that if the U.S. further escalates sanctions on China’s high-tech products, China could retaliate in kind — using tariffs for tariffs, sanctions for sanctions, and regulations for regulations.

Most used strategy

Yang Yikui, an assistant researcher at Taiwan National Defense Security Research Institute, said economic coercion is China’s most commonly used retaliatory tactic.

He said China imposed trade sanctions on salmon imported from Norway when the late pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. Beijing tightened restrictions on imports of Philippine bananas, citing quarantine issues, during a 2012 maritime dispute with Manila over a shoal in the South China Sea.

Yang said studies show that since 2018, China’s sanctions have become more diverse and detailed, allowing it to retaliate directly and indirectly. It can also use its economic and trade relations to force companies from other countries to participate.

Yang said that after Lithuania agreed in 2021 to let Taiwan establish a representative office in Vilnius, China downgraded its diplomatic relations from the ambassadorial level to the charge d’affaires and removed the country from its customs system database, making it impossible for Lithuanian goods to pass customs.

Beijing then reduced the credit lines of Lithuanian companies operating in the Chinese market and forced other multinational companies to sanction Lithuania. Companies in Germany, France, Sweden and other countries reportedly had cargos stopped at Chinese ports because they contained products made in Lithuania. 

When Australia investigated the origins of COVID, an upset China imposed tariffs or import bans on Australian beef, wine, cotton, timber, lobster, coal and barley. But Beijing did not sanction Australia’s iron ore, wool and natural gas because sanctions on those products stood to hurt key Chinese sectors. 

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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A system of ocean currents that transports heat northward across the North Atlantic could collapse by midcentury, according to a new study. Scientists have said that such a collapse could cause catastrophic sea level rise and extreme weather across the globe. 

In recent decades, researchers have both raised and downplayed the specter of Atlantic current collapse. It even prompted a movie that strayed far from the science. Two years ago, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said any such catastrophe was unlikely this century. But the new study published in Nature Communications suggests it might not be as far away and unlikely as mainstream science says. 

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation is a vital system of ocean currents that circulates water throughout the Atlantic Ocean, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It’s a lengthy process, taking an estimated 1,000 years to complete, but has slowed even more since the mid-1900s. 

A further slowdown or complete halting of the circulation could create more extreme weather in the Northern Hemisphere, sea level rise on the East Coast of the United States and drought for millions in southern Africa, scientists in Germany and the U.S. have said. But the timing is uncertain. 

In the new study, Peter and Susanne Ditlevsen, two researchers from Denmark, analyzed sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic between 1870 and 2020 as a way of assessing this circulation. They found the system could collapse as soon as 2025 and as late as 2095, given current global greenhouse gas emissions.

“There are large uncertainties in this study, in many prior studies, and in climate impact assessment overall, and scientists sometimes miss important aspects that can lead to both over- and underprediction of impacts,” Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct, a carbon management company, said in a statement. “Still, the conclusion is obvious: Action must be swift and profound to counter major climate risks.” 

Stefan Rahmstorf, co-author on a 2018 study on the subject, published an extensive analysis of the Ditlevesens’ study on RealClimate, a website that publishes commentary from climate scientists. While he said that a tipping point for the collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation was “highly uncertain,” he also called the IPCC estimate conservative. 

“Increasingly the evidence points to the risk being far greater than 10% during this century,” he wrote, “… rather worrying for the next few decades.” 
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The U.S. government “absolutely” has recovered extraterrestrial craft, according to a former combat officer who was a member of a Department of Defense task force that investigated unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP.

Dave Grusch, in response to a House member’s questions during a congressional hearing Wednesday, said he knows the exact locations of such alien craft and that he had provided this information to the intelligence community’s inspector general.

Grusch, who has become a whistleblower and testified that he has faced retaliation for his revelations, told lawmakers that the U.S. government also possesses evidence of non-human biologics. Grusch did not elaborate, stating he had not seen any alien craft or beings himself, but was basing his testimony on dozens of interviews he had conducted within the U.S. intelligence community.

The Air Force veteran, who also worked for two intelligence agencies, was one of three former military officers who appeared before the House Oversight Committee’s national security subcommittee, which held a 135-minute open televised hearing on unidentified flying objects.

The technology “is beyond anything we have,” said David Fravor, who in 2004 as a U.S. Navy pilot videotaped off the coast of California a physics-defying flight of an object, known as the “Tic-Tac.”

“There’s four sets of human eyeballs [that witnessed the incident], we’re all very credible,” testified Fravor. “It’s not a joke.”

A third witness, Ryan Graves, was an F/A-18 Super Hornet U.S. Navy pilot stationed in Virginia in 2014 when his squadron first began encountering unknown objects. He described what he and his colleagues saw as a “dark gray or a black cube inside of a clear sphere” approximately 1.5 to 4.5 meters in diameter. Such incidents became so frequent, according to Graves, that air crews would discuss potential risks from the objects as a routine part of their pre-flight briefings.

Under questioning by a lawmaker, Graves said he knew the craft could not be of domestic origin because they were able to remain completely stationary in Category 4 hurricane winds and then could accelerate to supersonic speeds.

Graves said there were similar reports by military pilots and others from nearly everywhere in the world the U.S. Navy operates.

The hearing contained other sensational testimony, for which there has been no independent confirmation but is similar to statements the witnesses and others have made in recent years in mainstream media articles, including those published by The New York Times.

A Defense Department entity established to investigate UAP phenomena, the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, is refuting Grusch’s claim that access to some materials for an earlier task force was denied.

“To date, AARO has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently. AARO is committed to following the data and its investigation wherever it leads,” said Sue Gough, a Pentagon spokesperson.

Grusch told the bipartisan group of lawmakers there is more classified information, including about a flying object the size of a football field, he could reveal “in a closed session at the right level.”

Lawmaker Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida, said the committee was denied access to the Secure Classified Information Facility, or SCIF, within the U.S. Capitol to hear further testimony from the witnesses regarding classified matters.

Several members of the committee pledged to work to make more information about the topic public.

“We’re trying to get to the bottom of it,” lawmaker Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, said in expressing appreciation for the witnesses appearing at a public congressional hearing. “I want to thank everybody. We made history today.”

Lawmaker Robert Garcia, a freshman California Democrat, told the witnesses they “had a lot of courage” and characterized Wednesday’s hearing as the most bipartisan discussion he had experienced during his first seven months in Congress.

“Many Americans are deeply interested in this issue, and it shouldn’t take the potential of nonhuman origin to bring us together,” added lawmaker Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat.

Luna recently accused the U.S. government of stonewalling lawmakers’ efforts for transparency, saying she and other lawmakers were rebuffed by officials when they went to an Air Force base in Florida seeking information on UAP sightings by military pilots.

“They refuse to answer questions posed by whistleblowers, avoiding the concerns of Americans and acknowledging the possible threat of UAPs poses to our national security as well as public safety,” Luna said at a news conference last week. “It is extremely unnecessary and an overclassification.”

During Wednesday’s session, Graves noted there are many more credible witnesses with significant information but who are “hesitant to come forward” because they fear ridicule and retaliation.” He said a centralized method for reporting sightings would circumvent potential retaliation, a system lawmakers expressed interest in creating through bipartisan legislation.

UAP are “a national security issue worth looking at,” according to John Kirby, a former Navy admiral, who is a National Security Council spokesman. He said the matter is taken seriously by President Joe Biden and his administration.

“In some cases, these phenomena have affected military training, have impacted military readiness,” Kirby told White House reporters following the congressional hearing. “The truth is we don’t have hard and fast answers on these things.”
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