Month: March 2024

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Not long ago, people wrote letters by hand. But like many things eclipsed by modern technology, handwritten letters are less common than they used to be. Now, that technology has started writing those letters. VOA’s Julie Taboh introduces us to handwriting robots in this week’s episode of LogOn.
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An analysis by Britain’s Royal United Services Institute has found that many Western nations still rely on Russian nuclear fuel to power their reactors, despite efforts to sever economic ties with the Kremlin following its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Florida will have one of the country’s most restrictive social media bans for minors — if it withstands expected legal challenges — under a bill signed by Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Monday. 

The bill will ban social media accounts for children under 14 and require parental permission for 15- and 16-year-olds. It was slightly watered down from a proposal DeSantis vetoed earlier this month, a week before the annual legislative session ended.

The new law was Republican Speaker Paul Renner’s top legislative priority. It takes effect January 1. 

“A child in their brain development doesn’t have the ability to know that they’re being sucked into these addictive technologies and to see the harm and step away from it, and because of that we have to step in for them,” Renner said at the bill-signing ceremony held at a Jacksonville school. 

The bill DeSantis vetoed would have banned minors under 16 from popular social media platforms regardless of parental consent. But before the veto, he worked out compromise language with Renner to alleviate the governor’s concerns and the Legislature sent DeSantis a second bill. 

Several states have considered similar legislation. In Arkansas, a federal judge blocked enforcement of a law in August that required parental consent for minors to create new social media accounts. 

Supporters in Florida hope the bill will withstand legal challenges because it would ban social media formats based on addictive features such as notification alerts and auto-play videos, rather than on their content. 

Renner said he expects social media companies to “sue the second after this is signed. But you know what? We’re going to beat them. We’re going to beat them and we’re never, ever going to stop.” 

DeSantis also acknowledged the law will be challenged on First Amendment issues and bemoaned the fact the “Stop Woke Act” he signed into law two years ago was recently struck down by an appeals court with a majority of Republican-appointed judges. They ruled it violated free speech rights by banning private business from including discussions about racial inequality in employee training. 

“Any time I see a bill, if I don’t think it’s constitutional, I veto it,” said DeSantis, a lawyer, expressing confidence that the social media ban will be upheld. “We not only satisfied me, but we also satisfied, I think, a fair application of the law and Constitution.” 

The bill overwhelmingly passed both chambers, with some Democrats joining a majority of Republicans who supported the measure. Opponents argued it was unconstitutional and that the government shouldn’t interfere with decisions parents make with their children. 

“This bill goes too far in taking away parents’ rights,” Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani said in a news release. “Instead of banning social media access, it would be better to ensure improved parental oversight tools, improved access to data to stop bad actors, alongside major investments in Florida’s mental health systems and programs.”
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WASHINGTON — The young voices in the messages left for North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis were laughing, but the words were ominous.

“OK, listen, if you ban TikTok I will find you and shoot you,” one said, giggling and talking over other young voices in the background. “I’ll shoot you and find you and cut you into pieces.” Another threatened to kill Tillis, and then take their own life.

Tillis’s office says it has received around 1,000 calls about TikTok since the House passed legislation this month that would ban the popular app if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake. TikTok has been urging its users — many of whom are young — to call their representatives, even providing an easy link to the phone numbers. “The government will take away the community that you and millions of other Americans love,” read one pop-up message from the company when users opened the app.

Tillis, who supports the House bill, reported the call to the police. “What I hated about that was it demonstrates the enormous influence social media platforms have on young people,” he said in an interview.

While more aggressive than most, TikTok’s extensive lobbying campaign is the latest attempt by the tech industry to head off any new legislation — and it’s a fight the industry usually wins. For years Congress has failed to act on bills that would protect users’ privacy, protect children from online threats, make companies more liable for their content and put loose guardrails around artificial intelligence, among other things.

“I mean, it’s almost embarrassing,” says Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., a former tech executive who is also supporting the TikTok bill and has long tried to push his colleagues to regulate the industry. “I would hate for us to maintain our perfect zero batting average on tech legislation.”

Some see the TikTok bill as the best chance for now to regulate the tech industry and set a precedent, if a narrow one focused on just one company. President Joe Biden has said he would sign the House bill, which overwhelmingly passed 362-65 this month after a rare 50-0 committee vote moving it to the floor.

But it’s already running into roadblocks in the Senate, where there is little unanimity on the best approach to ensure that China doesn’t access private data from the app’s 170 million U.S. users or influence them through its algorithms.

Other factors are holding the Senate back. The tech industry is broad and falls under the jurisdiction of several different committees. Plus, the issues at play don’t fall cleanly on partisan lines, making it harder for lawmakers to agree on priorities and how legislation should be written. Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has so far been reluctant to embrace the TikTok bill, for example, calling for hearings first and suggesting that the Senate may want to rewrite it.

“We’re going through a process,” Cantwell said. “It’s important to get it right.”

Warner, on the other hand, says the House bill is the best chance to get something done after years of inaction. And he says that the threatening calls from young people are a good example of why the legislation is needed: “It makes the point, do we really want that kind of messaging being able to be manipulated by the Communist Party of China?”

Some lawmakers are worried that blocking TikTok could anger millions of young people who use the app, a crucial segment of voters in November’s election. But Warner says “the debate has shifted” from talk of an outright ban a year ago to the House bill which would force TikTok, a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd., to sell its stake for the app to continue operating.

Vice President Kamala Harris, in a television interview that aired Sunday, acknowledged the popularity of the app and that it has become an income stream for many people. She said the administration does not intend to ban TikTok but instead deal with its ownership. “We understand its purpose and its utility and the enjoyment that it gives a lot of folks,” Harris told ABC’s ”This Week.”

Republicans are divided. While most of them support the TikTok legislation, others are wary of overregulation and the government targeting one specific entity.

“The passage of the House TikTok ban is not just a misguided overreach; it’s a draconian measure that stifles free expression, tramples constitutional rights, and disrupts the economic pursuits of millions of Americans,” Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Hoping to persuade their colleagues to support the bill, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee have called for intelligence agencies to declassify information about TikTok and China’s ownership that has been provided to senators in classified briefings.

“It is critically important that the American people, especially TikTok users, understand the national security issues at stake,” the senators said in a joint statement.

Blumenthal and Blackburn have separate legislation they have been working on for several years aimed at protecting children’s online safety, but the Senate has yet to vote on it. Efforts to regulate online privacy have also stalled, as has legislation to make technology companies more liable for the content they publish.

And an effort by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to quickly move legislation that would regulate the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry has yet to show any results.

Schumer has said very little about the TikTok bill or whether he might put it on the Senate floor.

“The Senate will review the legislation when it comes over from the House,” was all he would say after the House passed the bill.

South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican who has worked with Schumer on the artificial intelligence effort, says he thinks the Senate can eventually pass a TikTok bill, even if it’s a different version. He says the classified briefings “convinced the vast majority of members” that they have to address the collection of data from the app and TikTok’s ability to push out misinformation to users.

“I think it’s a clear danger to our country if we don’t act,” he said. “It does not have to be done in two weeks, but it does have to be done.”

Rounds says he and Schumer are still holding regular meetings on artificial intelligence, as well, and will soon release some of their ideas publicly. He says he’s optimistic that the Senate will eventually act to regulate the tech industry.

“There will be some areas that we will not try to get into, but there are some areas that we have very broad consensus on,” Rounds says.

Tillis says senators may have to continue laying the groundwork for a while and educating colleagues on why some regulation is needed, with an eye toward passing legislation in the next Congress.

“It can’t be the wild, wild west,” Tillis said.
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BOULDER, Colo. — Space weather forecasters have issued a geomagnetic storm watch through Monday, saying an outburst of plasma from a solar flare could interfere with radio transmissions on Earth. It could also make for great aurora viewing.

There’s no reason for the public to be concerned, according to the alert issued Saturday by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

The storm could interrupt high-frequency radio transmissions, such as by aircraft trying to communicate with distant traffic control towers. Most commercial aircraft can use satellite transmission as backup, said Jonathan Lash, a forecaster at the center.

Satellite operators might have trouble tracking their spacecraft, and power grids could also see some “induced current” in their lines, though nothing they can’t handle, he said.

“For the general public, if you have clear skies at night and you are at higher latitudes, this would be a great opportunity to see the skies light up,” Lash said.

Every 11 years, the sun’s magnetic field flips, meaning its north and south poles switch positions. Solar activity changes during that cycle, and it’s now near its most active, called the solar maximum.

During such times, geomagnetic storms of the type that arrived Sunday can hit Earth a few times a year, Lash said. During solar minimum, a few years may pass between storms.

In December, the biggest solar flare in years disrupted radio communications.
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Geneva — In marking World Tuberculosis Day, the World Health Organization is calling for action to rid the world of this ancient scourge, which has sickened and killed millions of people throughout the ages.

This year’s theme, “Yes! We can end TB,” is intended to send a message of hope that ending the epidemic, which WHO says each year causes the deaths of some 1.3 million people, is possible.

While the disease is curable and preventable, heads of state at the 2023 U.N. high-level meeting on TB estimated that $13 billion was needed every year for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care to end the epidemic by 2030.

The heads of state, who pledged to accelerate progress to end TB and to turn these commitments “into tangible actions,” approved a series of global targets for moving this process forward.

“These include reaching 90% of people in need with TB prevention and care services, using WHO-recommended rapid tests and the first method of diagnosing TB, and providing a health and social benefit package to all people with tuberculosis,” said Dr. Tereza Kasaeva, director of WHO’s Global Tuberculosis Program.

“This is a watershed for the global fight to end tuberculosis. The next five years will be critical for ensuring that the political momentum we have now is translated into concrete action towards reaching global TB targets.”

Tuberculosis is the world’s second leading infectious killer after COVID-19, above HIV and AIDS. WHO reports 1.3 million people died from TB in 2022 and an estimated 10.6 million fell ill with the disease.

This is the highest number of new cases since the agency began monitoring the disease in 1995. WHO says the sharp rise may be linked to “delays in treatment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

TB, an airborne disease, spreads when infected people cough, sneeze, or spit. It is present in all countries and age groups.

“Preventing TB infection and stopping progression from infection to disease are critical for reducing the incidence to the levels envisioned by the anti-TB strategy,” said Saskia Den Boon, technical officer, WHO Global TB Program.

“One of the key health care interventions to achieve this reduction is TB preventive treatment, which WHO recommends for people living with HIV, household contacts of people with TB and other risk groups.

“Strategies to provide preventive treatment are often linked to screening, to find and treat people earlier in the course of their disease and thus help to prevent transmission and improve outcomes,” she said.

In recent years, new tools developed and recommended by WHO are making TB screening more feasible. These include shorter preventive treatments of one or three months and a new antigen-based skin test for TB infection.

“For screening, WHO recommends the use of artificial intelligence or AI for the computer aided protection of tuberculosis abnormalities on chest x-ray among other tests,” said Den Boon.

WHO has released a modeling study that examines the costs and benefits of screening and preventive treatment in four countries — Brazil, Georgia, Kenya, and South Africa.

“The investment case studies showed that in all four countries, many TB episodes can be prevented, and lives saved by investing in TB screening,” Den Boon said.

“The modeling showed that relatively modest investments can achieve significant health and economic benefits in all four countries… From a societal perspective, the intervention package was cost-saving in all four countries. The return on investment varied between countries and was up to $39 gained for every dollar invested,” she said.

WHO scientists agree that early diagnosis is crucial to tackling, curing, and preventing the spread of tuberculosis. By the same token, they agree on the importance of developing new vaccines for prevention and eventual eradication.

Currently, only the BCG TB vaccine for children is available and it is 100 years old.

“Indeed, it is absolutely unacceptable that in the 21st century with a lot of innovations, we still do not have a new effective, TB vaccine,” said Kasaeva.

She said WHO’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus, launched a TB Vaccine Accelerator Council last year to bring attention to this problem and attract investments for research and development.

She said the U.N. high-level meeting is backing WHO’s initiative, adding, “This will make it possible to have new TB vaccines within the next five years.”

“We have more than 16 candidates in the pipeline, some of them in the later stages,” she said, “but we need more attention, more prioritization, more investments.”
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ALONG RIVER RWIZI, Uganda — Along a stretch of bush by a muddy river, laborers dug and slashed in search of bamboo plants buried under dense grass. Here and there a few plants had sprouted tall, but most of the bamboo seedlings planted more than a year ago never grew.

Now, environment protection officers seeking to restore a 3-kilometer stretch of the river’s degraded banks were aiming to plant new bamboo seedlings, clear room for last year’s survivors to grow and look after them better than they did the first time.

A successful bamboo forest by the river Rwizi — the most important in a large part of western Uganda that includes the major city of Mbarara — would create a buffer zone against sand miners, subsistence farmers and others whose activities have long threatened the river. The National Environment Management Authority estimates that the Rwizi has lost 60% of its water catchment area over the decades, and in some areas this winding river runs as narrow as a stream.

“Once bamboo is established, it is almost like a net,” said Jeconious Musingwire, an environment officer who was the project’s technical adviser. “The roots trap everything, including the surface runoff, and stabilize the weaknesses of the banks.”

Uganda is seeing growing interest in bamboo, a perennial plant cultivated in many parts of the world. It can be burned for fuel in rural communities, taking pressure off dwindling forest reserves of eucalyptus and other natural resources. It’s a hardy plant that can grow almost anywhere. And businesses can turn it into products ranging from furniture to toothpicks.

Some of the bamboo species grown in Uganda are imported from Asia, but many — like one whose shoots are smoked and then boiled to make a popular traditional meal in eastern Uganda — grow wild.

The Ugandan government has set a 10-year policy that calls for planting 300,000 hectares of bamboo, most of it on private land, by 2029 as part of wider reforestation efforts.

That’s an ambitious target. The Uganda Bamboo Association, the largest such group with 340 members, has planted only 500 hectares. Even with growing interest in bamboo farming, authorities will have to encourage more farmers in rural parts of Uganda to plant vast tracts of land with bamboo.

But signs are promising.

Not far from the scene where laborers were tending bamboo plants sits a large commercial farm that includes seven acres of bamboo. The plants at Kitara Farm were well-tended, and a stockpile of 10,000 bamboo poles sat waiting to be sold.

Caretaker Joseph Katumba said the property has become something of a demonstration farm for people who want to learn more about bamboo. He recalled that when they first began planting bamboo in 2017, some people asked why they were “wasting land” by planting bamboo when it grows wild in the bush.

Katumba said that’s changed, with skeptics now interested in planting bamboo “because they have studied it and they love it.” Unlike eucalyptus — a tall flowering plant widely planted here for its timber — “there is no bamboo season. The more you look after it well, weeding around it, the more and more years you will earn from bamboo.”

Bamboo grows faster than eucalyptus and regenerates like a weed. It also can thrive in poor soil. Kitara Farm stopped planting new eucalyptus lots while its bamboo acreage continues to expand, he said.

“We have so many eucalyptus forests. But we realized that once you cut the eucalyptus trees, eventually they get finished, and once they are finished there is no more money,” he said. “But with bamboo, we investigated and found out that when you plant it … the grandkids and their grandkids and their grandkids will earn from bamboo.”

A single bamboo pole brings a little less than a dollar, so farmers need to grow a lot to earn enough. Bamboo promoters are urging them to see a bamboo plantation as the same kind of cash crop as coffee or tea estates. Banks are offering bamboo “plantation capital” to clients, loans that promise ownership of substantial acres of bamboo.

“Each person should actually plant bamboo, and a lot of it,” said Taga Nuwagaba, a bamboo farmer and businessman who owns a bamboo furniture factory near the Ugandan capital of Kampala. He touts the plant as a a renewable resource that sequesters carbon, too.

“You cut one, five will grow,” he said.

Bamboo plants are normally ready for harvesting in three to five years, and a well-maintained plantation can be useful for at least 50 years, said Jacob Ogola, an agronomist who is working as a consultant at Kitara Farm. He said bamboo is easy to manage, and typically doesn’t need spraying for pests.

Bamboo seedlings are now more widely available via private nursery beds.

Steve Tusiime, a self-described bamboo collector, owns one such nursery in Mbarara. Tusiime said he’s been fascinated by the plant since seeing one as a boy. Before he got into growing, he recalls traveling to a farm in central Uganda to “hug” bamboo plants, and in 2018 spending his own money to attend a bamboo convention in China, where he got his first bamboo seeds.

Standing on another stretch of land by the river Rwizi where he and his partners have created a bamboo park in a recreation resort still to be commissioned, he waxed lyrical about how bamboo “energizes” him.

“Each bamboo you see here has a story. It has where it comes from and it has different use and it has a different name,” he said. “When you come here the story is bamboo. You learn about different species, different uses. You see different features of bamboo.”

Still, Uganda’s bamboo plantations aren’t growing fast enough to build an industry around the plant. Tusiime’s nursery has sold fewer than 10,000 seedlings in the past two years, confounding his own assessment of bamboo as an important cash crop which also happens to benefit the environment.

“Bamboo can be a future tree for Uganda or for even Africa. For example, you’ve heard people talking about charcoal and firewood and this and that. Bamboo is a better solution,” he said. “You can produce the briquette, you can use it directly as firewood. Bamboo is going to be a game changer in Africa. You can eat bamboo, you can use it to build, you can create an industry for bamboo, you can feed it to your animals, and it can take care of your land.”
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BENGALURU, India — Abinaya Tamilarasu said her four cows are part of the family. She has a degree in commerce from a local college, but prefers being home milking cows and tending to her family’s land.

“Our family cannot let farming go, it’s a way of life for us,” said the 28-year-old, who lives on her family farm in India’s southern Tamil Nadu state. Even when she could be making more money elsewhere, she said she’s “still happy we have our cows.”

India is the world’s largest milk producer, and is home to 80 million dairy farmers who made 231 million tons of milk last year. Many farmers, like Tamilarasu, only have a few cows, but the industry as a whole has 303 million bovine cattle like cows and buffalo, making it the largest contributor to planet-warming methane emissions in the country. The federal government has made some positive steps to reduce methane, but wants to focus emissions cuts elsewhere, like by moving to renewable energy, saying most methane emissions are a fact of life. But experts say the industry can and should make more reductions that can quickly limit warming.

India is the third-largest emitter of methane in the world, according to figures published earlier this month by the International Energy Agency, and livestock are responsible for about 48% of all methane emissions in India, the vast majority from cattle. Methane is a potent planet-warming gas that can trap more than 80 times more heat in the atmosphere in the short term than carbon dioxide.

The Indian government has not joined any global pledges to cut methane emissions, which many see as low-hanging fruit for climate solutions, as methane emissions only last in the atmosphere for about a dozen years, compared to CO2 that can linger for a couple of hundred years.

But there’s some work on methane reduction in agriculture on the national level: The government’s National Dairy Development Board, which works with more than 17 million farmers across the country, is looking into genetic improvement programs to provide more nutritious feed to livestock which would make cows more productive, meaning each farmer would need fewer cows to produce the same amount of milk. Studies by the NDDB show that emissions are reduced by as much as 15% when a balanced diet is provided to the animals.

The board is also looking into reducing crop burning, a high-emitting practice that some farmers use to clear their lands, by feeding those crops to cows.

“Climate-smart dairying is the need of the hour,” said Meenesh Shah, the board’s chairman.

Vineet Kumar, from the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, agreed that good quality feed can help lower emissions. He also said encouraging more local breeds that emit less can help. “These solutions can be a win-win for everyone,” he said.

But Thanammal Ravichandran, a veterinarian based in the southern Indian city of Coimbatore, noted that there’s currently a shortage of feed in India, so farmers give their cattle whatever they can, which is mostly lower quality and higher emitting.

“Farmers are also not able to invest in better quality feed for their cattle,” she said. To get better, and more affordable feed, dairy farmers need more government support, she said.

Whatever measures are taken to reduce methane emissions, experts note that it should have minimal impact on farmers’ livelihoods, and should account for the ways people raise their livestock.

“Livestock have been closely integrated within the Indian farming system,” said Kumar, meaning any drastic changes to farming methods would have severe effects on farmers. He added that efforts to reduce emissions shouldn’t reduce the use of cow manure as fertilizer on India’s farms, as chemical fertilizers emit nitrous oxide, an even more potent greenhouse gas.

But looking at India’s methane emissions as a whole could provide some more obvious solutions to slashing the gas, said Bandish Patel, an energy analyst at the climate thinktank Ember. Focusing on the energy sector is an easy win for targeted reduction of methane emissions, he said.

“You look at agriculture, those emissions are very dispersed in nature, whereas, with oil, gas and coal mining, there are very pointed sources from which you can basically reduce methane going forward,” he said.

Shah from the NDDB added that India’s high agricultural emissions must be considered in the context of the country being home to the world’s largest cattle population, the largest producer of milk, and the largest rice exporter, as rice production also produces significant methane emissions.

“In this light, India’s agriculture sector emissions must be considered significantly low,” Shah said. Because of its large population, India’s per capita emissions are well below average.

For dairy farmers like Tamilarasu, better welfare for her cows and programs for farmers to have better practices are welcome, but she won’t be leaving her cows for the climate any time soon. She plans to continue dairy farming for the foreseeable future.

“The way we see it, our cows and us support each other. If we can make their lives better, they will make ours better too,” she said. 
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washington — At least 54 people have lost their lives to cholera in Somalia in recent months. Nine of those deaths occurred within the past week, marking the highest weekly death toll this year, humanitarian group Save the Children said.   

In an interview with VOA Somali, Mohamed Abdulkadir, acting operations director for Save the Children Somalia, said the statistic highlights how vulnerable children are to the deadly disease. 

“In collaboration with Somalia’s Ministry of Health and Human Services, Save the Children reveals that among 4,388 confirmed cases in 2024, 59% belong to children under the age of five,” Abdulkadir said. 

In the southern states of the country, Mogadishu, the country’s capital, has experienced a significant surge in reported cholera cases in the past two weeks. 

Abdulkadir said 586 new cases have been reported in 23 districts, with 331 of them affecting children under the age of five. 

The outbreak, which began in January of this year, is believed to be a direct consequence of severe flooding that occurred in October and November 2023.

“We believe that the recent devastating flooding in areas like Mogadishu, Beledweyne and Baidoa has contributed to the outbreak of the disease,” said Abdulkadir.   

He said Save the Children is urgently calling for action from local governments and health agencies to combat the rapid spread of cholera. 

“We call for an action from the Somali federal government and the local governments to fight against this highly contagious disease, which primarily spreads through contaminated water areas with inadequate sewage treatment, flooded regions,” he said.

People who lack safe drinking water are particularly susceptible to the cholera outbreak, especially in the wake of flooding, he added.

To prevent further transmission of the disease, he said Save the Children is implementing an emergency response strategy. The aid agency is establishing two cholera treatment centers, providing essential hygiene kits and water treatment supplies in Beledweyne. 

Abdulkadir emphasized the gravity of the situation, stating that Somalia is at the forefront of the climate crisis. 

He said the combination of relentless rainfall, floods, and a devastating drought has left children and families extremely vulnerable to illness. He stressed the urgent need for clean drinking water and sanitation facilities to prevent the cholera outbreak from spiraling out of control when the rainy season begins in a month. 

In 2023, Somalia recorded more than 18,300 cases of cholera, with 10,000 of those cases affecting children under the age of five. Both Save the Children and the Somali government attributed the devastating rise in numbers to the destructive El Nino flooding in November and December, which destroyed toilets and latrines. Consequently, many communities, particularly those recently displaced by flooding and conflict, resorted to open defecation. 
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