Month: August 2023

About 49,500 people took their own lives last year in the U.S., the highest number ever, according to new government data posted Thursday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which posted the numbers, has not yet calculated a suicide rate for the year, but available data suggests suicides are more common in the U.S. than at any time since the dawn of World War II.

“There’s something wrong. The number should not be going up,” said Christina Wilbur, a 45-year-old Florida woman whose son shot himself to death last year.

“My son should not have died,” she said. “I know it’s complicated, I really do. But we have to be able to do something. Something that we’re not doing. Because whatever we’re doing right now is not helping.”

Experts caution that suicide is complicated, and that recent increases might be driven by a range of factors, including higher rates of depression and limited availability of mental health services.

But a main driver is the growing availability of guns, said Jill Harkavy-Friedman, senior vice president of research at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Suicide attempts involving guns end in death far more often than those with other means, and gun sales have boomed — placing firearms in more and more homes.

A recent Johns Hopkins University analysis used preliminary 2022 data to calculate that the nation’s overall gun suicide rate rose last year to an all-time high. For the first time, the gun suicide rate among Black teens surpassed the rate among white teens, the researchers found.

“I don’t know if you can talk about suicide without talking about firearms,” Harkavy-Friedman said.

U.S. suicides steadily rose from the early 2000s until 2018, when the national rate hit its highest level since 1941. That year saw about 48,300 suicide deaths — or 14.2 for every 100,000 Americans.

The rate fell slightly in 2019. It dropped again in 2020, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some experts tied that to a phenomenon seen in the early stages of wars and natural disasters, when people pull together and support each other.

But in 2021, suicides rose 4%. Last year, according to the new data, the number jumped by more than 1,000, to 49,449 — about a 3% increase vs. the year before. The provisional data comes from U.S. death certificates and is considered almost complete, but it may change slightly as death information is reviewed in the months ahead.

The largest increases were seen in older adults. Deaths rose nearly 7% in people ages 45 to 64, and more than 8% in people 65 and older. White men, in particular, have very high rates, the CDC said.

Many middle-aged and elderly people experience problems like losing a job or losing a spouse, and it’s important to reduce stigma and other obstacles to them getting assistance, said Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC’s chief medical officer.

Suicides in adults ages 25 to 44 grew about 1%. The new data indicates that suicide became the second leading cause of death in that age group in 2022, up from No. 4 in 2021.

Despite the grim statistics, some say there is reason for optimism. A national crisis line launched a year ago, meaning anyone in the U.S. can dial 988 to reach mental health specialists.

The CDC is expanding a suicide program to fund more prevention work in different communities. And there’s growing awareness of the issue and that it’s OK to ask for help, health officials say.

There was a more than 8% drop in suicides in people ages 10 to 24 in 2022. That may be due to increased attention to youth mental health issues and a push for schools and others to focus on the problem, CDC officials said.

But even the smaller number masks tragedy for families.

Christina Wilbur lost her 21-year-old son, Cale, on June 16 last year. He died in her home in Land O’ Lakes, Florida.

Cale Wilbur had lost two friends and an uncle to suicide and had been dealing with depression. On that horrible morning, he and his mother were having an argument. She had confronted him about his drug use, his mother said. She left his bedroom and when she returned he had a gun.

“I was begging him not too, and to calm down,” she said. “It looked like he relaxed for a second, but then he killed himself.”

She describes her life since as black hole of emptiness and sorrow, and had found it hard to talk to friends or even family about Cale.

“Everything reminds me of what’s missing,” she said.

It’s hard to find professionals to help, and those that are around can be expensive, she said. She turned to support groups, including an organization called Alliance of Hope for Suicide Loss Survivors that operates a 24/7 online forum.

“There’s nothing like being with people who get it,” she said.
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Russia launched its first mission to the moon in nearly 50 years on Friday, racing to land on the lunar south pole before a spacecraft from India gets there.

The launch of the Luna-25 craft to the moon was Russia’s first since 1976, when it was part of the Soviet Union, and is being conducted without assistance from the European Space Agency, which ended cooperation with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian lunar lander is expected to reach the moon on August 23, about the same day as an Indian craft that was launched July 14.

Only three governments have managed successful moon landings: the Soviet Union, the United States and China. India and Russia are aiming to be the first to land at the moon’s south pole.

Study ‘is not the goal’

Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, said it wants to show Russia “is a state capable of delivering a payload to the moon,” and “ensure Russia’s guaranteed access to the moon’s surface.”

“Study of the moon is not the goal,” said Vitaly Egorov, a popular Russian space analyst. “The goal is political competition between two superpowers — China and the USA — and a number of other countries which also want to claim the title of space superpower.”

Sanctions imposed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine make it harder for it to access Western technology, impacting its space program. The Luna-25 was initially meant to carry a small moon rover, but that idea was abandoned to reduce the weight of the craft for improved reliability, analysts say.

“Foreign electronics are lighter, domestic electronics are heavier,” Egorov said. “While scientists might have the task of studying lunar water, for Roscosmos the main task is simply to land on the moon — to recover lost Soviet expertise and learn how to perform this task in a new era.”

The Luna-25 was launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East. The spaceport is a pet project of Russian President Vladimir Putin and is key to his efforts to make Russia a space superpower and move Russian launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Previous crash

A previous Indian attempt to land at the moon’s south pole in 2019 ended when the lander crashed into the moon’s surface.

The lunar south pole is of particular interest to scientists, who believe the permanently shadowed polar craters may contain water. The frozen water in the rocks could be transformed by future explorers into air and rocket fuel.

“The moon is largely untouched and the whole history of the moon is written on its face,” said Ed Bloomer, an astronomer at Britain’s Royal Observatory, Greenwich. “It is pristine and like nothing you get on Earth. It is its own laboratory.”

The Luna-25 is to take samples of moon rock and dust. The samples are crucial to understanding the moon’s environment ahead of building any base there. “Otherwise, we could be building things and having to shut them down six months later because everything has effectively been sandblasted,” Bloomer said.
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Nearly a third of U.S. hospital pharmacists say they were forced to ration, delay or cancel treatments as drug shortages in the United States approach an all-time high, according to a survey released Thursday.  

The shortages are especially critical for chemotherapy drugs used in cancer treatment regimens, with more than half of the 1,123 pharmacists surveyed saying they had to limit the use of such treatments.  

The survey was conducted June 23-July 14 by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), an association that represents more than 60,000 pharmacists and technicians. 

The drugs in shortage include vital therapies such as steroids, cancer treatments and antibiotics.  

According to the survey, while spikes in demand cause short-term scarcity such as for diabetes drug Ozempic, most severe and persistent shortages are driven by economic factors including extreme price competition among generic drugmakers. 

“Purchasing at the cheapest price has led to a race to the bottom, which has basically disincentivized any investment in quality and manufacturing,” said Michael Ganio, senior director of pharmacy practice and quality at ASHP.  

The number of U.S. drugs in shortfall — at 309 by the end of the second quarter — is already near a 10-year peak, according to the association, compared with an all-time high of 320 drugs.  

“In some cases, there are no alternatives to the affected drugs, which puts patients at risk. This issue requires quick action from Congress to address the underlying causes of shortages,” said ASHP CEO Paul Abramowitz.  

In June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it was seeking new suppliers to ease shortages of methotrexate, one of the most commonly used cancer drugs, building on its push to shore up two other scarce chemotherapy medicines.
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The World Health Organization says traditional medicine plays a pivotal role in the health and well-being of people and the planet and should be seen as complementary to modern medicine and be integrated into national health systems.

Traditional healers have used their knowledge of plants and potions for centuries to treat people with multiple ailments. Much traditional indigenous and ancestral knowledge of traditional medicine is frequently used in health care across the world.

“We are seeing a lot of increasing demand and increasing interest in traditional medicine at the moment,” said Rudi Eggers, WHO director for integrated health services. “Traditional medicine has become a global phenomenon.”

He said 170 out of 194 countries have reported to WHO “that they used traditional medicine in some form, such as acupuncture, herbal medicine, yoga, and indigenous medicine in their countries. In fact, for millions of people, of course, it is the first choice for health care. In some cases, the only choice for health care.”

The WHO says that around 40 percent of modern pharmaceutical products have roots in traditional medicine.

“Many traditional medicines were the basis for some of the classic scientific and medical technologies that have led to some of the major medical breakthroughs, including drugs like aspirin or artemisinin for malaria, and even smallpox inoculation,” said Shyama Kuruvilla, the WHO lead for the Global Center for Traditional Medicine.

Next week, WHO is convening the Traditional Medicine Global Summit in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. The two-day high-level meeting will explore the role of “traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine in addressing pressing global health challenges.”

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted the “important and catalytic role” traditional medicine can play in achieving the goal of universal health coverage and in meeting global health-related targets that were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said, “Bringing traditional medicine into the mainstream of health care…can help bridge access gaps for millions of people around the world” and would be an important step toward people-centered and holistic approaches to health and well-being.

Kuruvilla agreed that holistic well-being is at the core of all traditional medicine systems, adding that there are existing legal measures and commitments aimed at achieving this goal.

“For example, at the United Nations, the heads of states and governments in 2019 committed to looking at evidence-based ways to integrate traditional medicine into national health systems,” she said. “There are many existing commitments and frameworks that now needed to be implemented.”

Evidence essential, say experts

WHO officials say traditional medicine has contributed to breakthrough discoveries and continues to hold out great promise of other game-changing achievements.

They caution, however, that recommendations on any new therapy or treatment must be based on solid scientific evidence.

“Advancing science on traditional medicine should be held to the same rigorous standards as in other fields of health,” said John Reeder, WHO director of both the department of research for health and the special program for research and training in tropical diseases.

“We need to treat traditional interventions with the same respect we give to other more Western medical interventions and that means examining them closely and critically and scientifically in the same way,” he said.

Summit will highlight best practices

WHO reports next week’s summit will explore research and evaluation of traditional medicine. It also will be an opportunity to showcase countries’ experiences, explore regional trends and discuss best practices.

While traditional medicine has proven its value over many centuries, WHO officials say it cannot replace modern medical care.

Kim Sungchol, head of WHO’s traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine unit, observed that traditional and modern medicines have two different but complementary approaches to health.

“There is a certain advantage of each system,” he said. “For example, modern medicine is quite good and good in emergency care, in communicable disease management, and antibiotics.

“On traditional medicine, one of the unique characteristics that it has is the more holistic approach. It is much advanced in the promotion and prevention, particularly linked to non-communicable diseases,” he said. “So, we have to see the two things differently. We have to identify the strengths of each system to work together to best serve the well-being of the people and planet. That is our purpose.”
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Virgin Galactic rocketed to the edge of space with its first tourists Thursday, including a former British Olympian who bought his ticket 18 years ago and a mother-daughter duo from the Caribbean.

The space plane glided back to a runway landing at Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert, after a brief flight that gave passengers a few minutes of weightlessness.

Cheers erupted from families and friends watching from below when the craft’s rocket motor fired after it was released from the plane that had carried it aloft. The rocket ship reached about 88 kilometers high.

Richard Branson’s company expects to begin offering monthly trips to customers on its winged space plane, joining Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the space tourism business.

Virgin Galactic passenger Jon Goodwin, who was among the first to buy a ticket in 2005, said he had faith that he would someday make the trip. The 80-year-old athlete — he competed in canoeing in the 1972 Olympics — has Parkinson’s disease and wants to be an inspiration to others.

“I hope it shows them that these obstacles can be the start rather than the end to new adventures,” he said in a statement.

Ticket prices were $200,000 when Goodwin signed up. The cost is now $450,000.

He was joined by sweepstakes winner Keisha Schahaff, 46, a health coach from Antigua, and her daughter, Anastatia Mayers, 18, a student at Scotland’s University of Aberdeen. Also on board: two pilots and the company’s astronaut trainer.

It was Virgin Galactic’s seventh trip to space since 2018, but the first with a ticket-holder. Branson, the company’s founder, hopped on board for the first full-size crew ride in 2021. Italian military and government researchers soared in June on the first commercial flight. About 800 people are currently on Virgin Galactic’s waiting list, according to the company.

Virgin Galactic’s rocket ship launches from the belly of an airplane, not from the ground, and requires two pilots in the cockpit. Once the mothership reaches a height of about 15 kilometers, the space plane is released and fires its rocket motor to make the final push to just over 80 kilometers up. Passengers can unstrap from their seats, float around the cabin for a few minutes and take in the sweeping views of Earth, before the space plane glides back home and lands on a runway.

In contrast, the capsules used by SpaceX and Blue Origin are fully automated and parachute back down.

Like Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin aims for the fringes of space, quick ups-and-downs from West Texas. Blue Origin has launched 31 people so far, but flights are on hold following a rocket crash last fall. The capsule, carrying experiments but no passengers, landed intact.

SpaceX, is the only private company flying customers all the way to orbit, charging a much heftier price, too: tens of millions of dollars per seat. It’s already flown three private crews. NASA is its biggest customer, relying on SpaceX to ferry its astronauts to and from the International Space Station. since 2020.

People have been taking on adventure travel for decades, the risks underscored by the recent implosion of the Titan submersible that killed five passengers on their way down to view the Titanic wreckage. Virgin Galactic suffered its own casualty in 2014 when its rocket plane broke apart during a test flight, killing one pilot. Yet space tourists are still lining up, ever since the first one rocketed into orbit in 2001 with the Russians.

Branson, who lives in the British Virgin Islands, watched Thursday’s flight from a party in Antigua. He had held a virtual lottery to establish a pecking order for the company’s first 50 customers — dubbed the Founding Astronauts. Virgin Galactic said the group agreed Goodwin would go first, given his age and his Parkinson’s.
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Paris’ escape from record temperatures gripping parts of Europe this summer could be a short-term reprieve. A study finds the city could have the most heatwave-related deaths of any European capital by 2050 — when temperatures may soar to 50 C (122 F). For VOA, Lisa Bryant has more from Paris.
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China will require all mobile app providers in the country to file business details with the government, its information ministry said, marking Beijing’s latest effort to keep the industry on a tight leash. 

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said late on Tuesday that apps without proper filings will be punished after the grace period that will end in March next year, a move that experts say would potentially restrict the number of apps and hit small developers hard. 

You Yunting, a lawyer with Shanghai-based DeBund Law Offices, said the order is effectively requiring approvals from the ministry. The new rule is primarily aimed at combating online fraud but it will impact all apps in China, he said. 

Rich Bishop, co-founder of app publishing firm AppInChina, said the new rule is also likely to affect foreign-based developers which have been able to publish their apps easily through Apple’s App Store without showing any documentation to the Chinese government. 

Bishop said that in order to comply with the new rules, app developers now must either have a company in China or work with a local publisher.  

Apple did not immediately reply to a request for comment. 

The iPhone maker pulled over a hundred artificial intelligence (AI) apps from its App Store last week to comply with regulations after China introduced a new licensing regime for generative AI apps for the country.  

The ministry’s notice also said entities “engaged in internet information services through apps in such fields as news, publishing, education, film and television and religion should also submit relevant documents.” 

The requirement could affect the availability of popular social media apps such as X, Facebook and Instagram. Use of such apps are not allowed in China, but they can be still downloaded from app stores, enabling Chinese to use them when traveling overseas. 

China already requires mobile games to obtain licenses before they launch in the country, and it had purged tens of thousands of unlicensed games from various app stores in 2020. 

Tencent’s WeChat, China’s most popular online social platform, said on Wednesday that mini apps, apps that can be opened within WeChat, must also follow the new rules. 

The company said that new apps must complete the filing before launch starting from September, while exiting mini apps have until the end of March.  

 
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Currently spreading COVID-19 variants such as EG.5, or Eris, do not represent a major shift in COVID variants, and updated vaccines in September will offer protection, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. 

“Right now, what we’re seeing with the changes in the viruses, they’re still susceptible to our vaccine, they’re still susceptible to our medicines, they’re still picked up by the tests,” Dr. Mandy Cohen said in an interview on former Biden administration adviser Andy Slavitt’s “In the Bubble” podcast. “We’re seeing small changes that are what I would call subtypes of what we’ve seen before.” 

Updated vaccines should be available by mid- to late September, she said. 

COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers have created new versions of their vaccine, which were updated to target the so-called XBB.1.5 subvariant that was dominant earlier this year, in order to more closely resemble the circulating virus.  

“We anticipate that they are going to be available for most folks by the third or fourth week of September,” Cohen said. The vaccines still need to be authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the CDC needs to make its recommendations, she said.  

“We are likely to see this as a recommendation as an annual COVID shot just like we have an annual flu shot,” she said. 

Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax have all said they expect to have supplies of the updated vaccine ready for the rollout this autumn. 

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization classified the EG.5 coronavirus strain, circulating in the United States and China, as a “variant of interest” but said it did not seem to pose more of a threat to public health than other variants. Eris is the fasting-growing COVID-19 subvariant in the U.S., estimated to be responsible for around 17% of current COVID cases, according to the CDC. 
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The White House on Wednesday said it had launched a multimillion-dollar cyber contest to spur use of artificial intelligence to find and fix security flaws in U.S. government infrastructure, in the face of growing use of the technology by hackers for malicious purposes.  

“Cybersecurity is a race between offense and defense,” said Anne Neuberger, the U.S. government’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology.

“We know malicious actors are already using AI to accelerate identifying vulnerabilities or build malicious software,” she added in a statement to Reuters.

Numerous U.S. organizations, from health care groups to manufacturing firms and government institutions, have been the target of hacking in recent years, and officials have warned of future threats, especially from foreign adversaries.  

Neuberger’s comments about AI echo those Canada’s cybersecurity chief Samy Khoury made last month. He said his agency had seen AI being used for everything from creating phishing emails and writing malicious computer code to spreading disinformation.

The two-year contest includes around $20 million in rewards and will be led by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the U.S. government body in charge of creating technologies for national security, the White House said.

Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI — the U.S. technology firms at the forefront of the AI revolution — will make their systems available for the challenge, the government said.

The contest signals official attempts to tackle an emerging threat that experts are still trying to fully grasp. In the past year, U.S. firms have launched a range of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT that allow users to create convincing videos, images, texts, and computer code. Chinese companies have launched similar models to catch up.

Experts say such tools could make it far easier to, for instance, conduct mass hacking campaigns or create fake profiles on social media to spread false information and propaganda.  

“Our goal with the DARPA AI challenge is to catalyze a larger community of cyber defenders who use the participating AI models to race faster – using generative AI to bolster our cyber defenses,” Neuberger said.

The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF), a U.S. group of experts trying to improve open source software security, will be in charge of ensuring the “winning software code is put to use right away,” the U.S. government said. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden is planning Wednesday to impose restrictions on U.S. investments in some high-tech industries in China.

Biden’s expected executive order could again heighten tensions between the U.S., the world’s biggest economy, and No. 2 China after a period in which leaders of the two countries have held several discussions aimed at airing their differences and seeking common ground.

The new restrictions would limit U.S. investments in such high-tech sectors in China as quantum computing, artificial intelligence and advanced semi-conductors, but apparently not in the broader Chinese economy, which recently has been struggling to advance.

In a trip to China in July, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Chinese Premier Li Qiang, “The United States will, in certain circumstances, need to pursue targeted actions to protect its national security. And we may disagree in these instances.”

Trying to protect its own security interests in the Indo-Pacific region and across the globe, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in April that the U.S. has implemented “carefully tailored restrictions on the most advanced semiconductor technology exports” to China.

“Those restrictions are premised on straightforward national security concerns,” he said. “Key allies and partners have followed suit, consistent with their own security concerns.”

Sullivan said they are not, as Beijing has claimed, a ‘technology blockade.’”
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Indonesia’s capital Jakarta topped the list as the world’s most polluted city on Wednesday, having consistently ranked among the 10 most polluted cities globally since May, according to data by Swiss air quality technology company IQAir.  

Jakarta, which has a population of over 10 million, registers unhealthy air pollution levels nearly every day, according to IQAir.  

Resident Rizky Putra lamented that the worsening air quality was putting his children’s health at risk.  

“I think the situation is very worrying,” Rizky, 35, told Reuters TV by the side of a road in downtown Jakarta.  

“So many children are sick with the same complaints and symptoms such as coughs and cold,” he said.  

Jakarta residents have long complained of toxic air from chronic traffic, industrial smoke and coal-fired power plants. Some of them launched and won a civil lawsuit in 2021 demanding the government take action to control air pollution.  

The court at the time ruled President Joko Widodo must establish national air quality standards to protect human health, and the health minister and Jakarta governor must devise strategies to control air pollution.  

Still, Nathan Roestandy, co-founder of air quality app Nafas Indonesia, said the pollution level has continued to deteriorate.  

“We take more than 20,000 breaths a day. If we take in polluted air everyday, (it could lead to) respiratory and pulmonary diseases, even asthma. It can affect cognitive development of children or even mental health,” he said.  

Asked about Jakarta’s pollution problem on Tuesday, President Widodo told reporters the solution would be to move the country’s capital city from Jakarta to Nusantara, which his government is currently building from the ground up on Borneo island.  

Indonesia is set to name Nusantara as the new capital next year and at least 16,000 civil servants, military and police are due to move there.
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U.N. agencies warn health conditions are deteriorating in Sudan and neighboring countries as growing numbers of people flee escalating fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Before the conflict erupted on April 15, 4.5 million Sudanese already were displaced — more than 3.7 million inside Sudan and another 800,000 as refugees in Chad, South Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia.

Since the rival generals went to war, the U.N. refugee agency says nearly an equal number — more than four million people — have become newly displaced.

“The situation inside Sudan, where UNHCR teams are present, is untenable as needs far outweigh what is humanly possible to deliver with available resources,” said William Spindler, UNHCR spokesman.

He said a lack of medicine and a shortage of staff to care for the sick and wounded in White Nile State severely hampered health and nutrition services in all 10 refugee camps, “where over 144,000 newly displaced refugees from Khartoum have arrived since the conflict started.”

He said many families that have been on the move for weeks, with very little food and medicine, were arriving at border entry points and transit centers in neighboring countries in desperate condition.

As a result, he said malnutrition rates have been rising, as have disease outbreaks and related deaths.

“Between 15 May and 17 July, over 300 deaths, mainly among children under five years, were reported due to measles and malnutrition,” he said.

“In addition, severe cholera and malaria cases are expected in the coming months due to flooding from the continuing rains and inadequate sanitation facilities.”

Now in its fourth month of conflict, the World Health Organization says insecurity, as well as limited access to medicine, medical supplies, electricity and water pose a challenge to the delivery of health care.

WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said attacks on health facilities were increasing, preventing the sick and wounded from accessing medical treatment. He said the WHO has verified 53 attacks on health care, causing 11 deaths and 38 injuries, between April 15 and July 31.

“Attacks on health care are a gross violation of international humanitarian law and the right to health. They must stop. Humanitarian workers need assurances of safety and security in order to continue delivering critical humanitarian and health response,” he said.

Meanwhile, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warns Sudan is facing a deepening food crisis, noting that “20.3 million individuals in Sudan face severe hunger, a figure that has nearly doubled since last year.”

Maximo Torero, FAO chief economist, said a recent U.N. food assessment shows “the level of acute food insecurity in Sudan has increased substantially to more than 11 million people because of the conflict. So, the situation is deteriorating.”

Meanwhile, in a bit of welcome news, the U.N. Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, confirmed Tuesday that the first humanitarian convoy since the start of the conflict had arrived in the East Darfur state after nine days on the road and that “those supplies have been distributed to more than 15,000 people in remote villages in the state.”

Additionally, OCHA said that the FAO had provided 430 tons of agricultural seeds “to be distributed to farmers across the state by the Ministry of Agriculture.”

U.N. agencies agree that the competing generals’ power grab has deepened Sudan’s humanitarian crisis. They warn the lives of many people are hanging by a thread, lives that will be lost without more donor support.

The Federal Ministry of Health says 12,200 people have been injured and 1,205 killed since April 15, figures U.N. agencies believe are greatly underestimated.
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Darwin, the capital city of Australia’s Northern Territory, can be brutally hot and humid.   Many of its 150,000 residents seek refuge from the tropical elements in air-conditioned homes, offices and cars.

But research from the Australian National University, the ANU, suggests that air-conditioning, which is often set at 21 degrees Celsius, is making people more vulnerable to heat-related death.

Heatwaves are Australia’s deadliest natural hazard.  They kill more people than bushfires, floods and storms put together.

The ANU asserts that “climate change is increasing heat-associated mortality particularly in hotter parts of the world.” 

Simon Quilty, the study’s lead author, is from the Australian National University’s National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health. He told VOA that avoiding the heat and humidity may prevent people from adapting to the climate.

“Being exposed regularly to the prevailing climate in which you live actually acclimatizes your body,” he said. “e know that acclimatization takes roughly 14-days to occur for a human body and that changes the way that we sweat, it changes the way that we breathe, it changes our kidneys and it even changes the way that our hearts pump.  What is happening now is that our entire lives are set at 21 degrees Celsius and so for people who are living in very hot climates like the Northern Territory that deacclimatization is actually probably increasing heat vulnerability.”

Quilty said the research also finds that First Nations communities in the Northern Territory are less vulnerable to heat because they are often less inclined or able to use air-conditioning.

“Yes, it is very, very uncomfortable in really hot weather in Darwin and other places in the Tropics around the world, but we do not all need to live at 21 degrees Celsius,” Quilty said.  “And certainly, my experience of Aboriginal people is they really do not like over air-conditioned environments.  They feel very uncomfortable in it.”       

Quilty says that First Nations people have shown “extraordinary resilience to extreme weather” over thousands of years.

The Australian National University study believes that “hot climate communities need to start considering socio-cultural means of adapting to hotter weather.”  

Indigenous Australians invariably stay out of the hot afternoon sun and reduce physical exertion in warmer parts of the day.  The study recommends that housing in hot climates should also be designed to ensure passive cooling to reduce energy costs.

The Australian research also asserts that a siesta – or an afternoon nap – during the warmest part of the day can help the body to acclimatize to the heat.    

The study is published in the journal, the Lancet Planetary Health.
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