Farmers in Kenya are using artificial intelligence to help them get better crop yields. An AI-powered tool – called Virtual Agronomist – engages directly with farmers to help them create tailored plans to optimize the quality and quantity of their crops. Mohammed Yusuf has more from Mwea, Kenya.
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Month: November 2024
U.S. regulators want a federal judge to break up Google to prevent the company from continuing to squash competition through its dominant search engine after a court found it had maintained an abusive monopoly over the past decade.
The proposed breakup floated in a 23-page document filed late Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice calls for sweeping punishments that would include a sale of Google’s industry-leading Chrome web browser and impose restrictions to prevent Android from favoring its own search engine.
A sale of Chrome “will permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet,” Justice Department lawyers argued in their filing.
Although regulators stopped short of demanding Google sell Android too, they asserted the judge should make it clear the company could still be required to divest its smartphone operating system if its oversight committee continues to see evidence of misconduct.
The broad scope of the recommended penalties underscores how severely regulators operating under President Joe Biden’s administration believe Google should be punished following an August ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta that branded the company as a monopolist.
The Justice Department decision-makers who will inherit the case after President-elect Donald Trump takes office next year might not be as strident. The Washington, D.C., court hearings on Google’s punishment are scheduled to begin in April and Mehta is aiming to issue his final decision before Labor Day.
If Mehta embraces the government’s recommendations, Google would be forced to sell its 16-year-old Chrome browser within six months of the final ruling. But the company certainly would appeal any punishment, potentially prolonging a legal tussle that has dragged on for more than four years.
Besides seeking a Chrome spinoff and a corralling of the Android software, the Justice Department wants the judge to ban Google from forging multibillion-dollar deals to lock in its dominant search engine as the default option on Apple’s iPhone and other devices. It would also ban Google from favoring its own services, such as YouTube or its recently launched artificial intelligence platform, Gemini.
Regulators also want Google to license the search index data it collects from people’s queries to its rivals, giving them a better chance at competing with the tech giant. On the commercial side of its search engine, Google would be required to provide more transparency into how it sets the prices that advertisers pay to be listed near the top of some targeted search results.
Kent Walker, Google’s chief legal officer, lashed out at the Justice Department for pursuing “a radical interventionist agenda that would harm Americans and America’s global technology.” In a blog post, Walker warned the “overly broad proposal” would threaten personal privacy while undermining Google’s early leadership in artificial intelligence, “perhaps the most important innovation of our time.”
Wary of Google’s increasing use of artificial intelligence in its search results, regulators also advised Mehta to ensure websites will be able to shield their content from Google’s AI training techniques.
The measures, if they are ordered, threaten to upend a business expected to generate more than $300 billion in revenue this year.
“The playing field is not level because of Google’s conduct, and Google’s quality reflects the ill-gotten gains of an advantage illegally acquired,” the Justice Department asserted in its recommendations. “The remedy must close this gap and deprive Google of these advantages.”
It’s still possible that the Justice Department could ease off attempts to break up Google, especially if Trump takes the widely expected step of replacing Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, who was appointed by Biden to oversee the agency’s antitrust division.
Although the case targeting Google was originally filed during the final months of Trump’s first term in office, Kanter oversaw the high-profile trial that culminated in Mehta’s ruling against Google. Working in tandem with Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, Kanter took a get-tough stance against Big Tech that triggered other attempted crackdowns on industry powerhouses such as Apple and discouraged many business deals from getting done during the past four years.
Trump recently expressed concerns that a breakup might destroy Google but didn’t elaborate on alternative penalties he might have in mind. “What you can do without breaking it up is make sure it’s more fair,” Trump said last month. Matt Gaetz, the former Republican congressman that Trump nominated to be the next U.S. Attorney General, has previously called for the breakup of Big Tech companies.
Gaetz faces a tough confirmation hearing.
This latest filing gave Kanter and his team a final chance to spell out measures that they believe are needed to restore competition in search. It comes six weeks after Justice first floated the idea of a breakup in a preliminary outline of potential penalties.
But Kanter’s proposal is already raising questions about whether regulators seek to impose controls that extend beyond the issues covered in last year’s trial, and — by extension — Mehta’s ruling.
Banning the default search deals that Google now pays more than $26 billion annually to maintain was one of the main practices that troubled Mehta in his ruling.
It’s less clear whether the judge will embrace the Justice Department’s contention that Chrome needs to be spun out of Google and or Android should be completely walled off from its search engine.
“It is probably going a little beyond,” Syracuse University law professor Shubha Ghosh said of the Chrome breakup. “The remedies should match the harm, it should match the transgression. This does seem a little beyond that pale.”
Google rival DuckDuckGo, whose executives testified during last year’s trial, asserted the Justice Department is simply doing what needs to be done to rein in a brazen monopolist.
“Undoing Google’s overlapping and widespread illegal conduct over more than a decade requires more than contract restrictions: it requires a range of remedies to create enduring competition,” Kamyl Bazbaz, DuckDuckGo’s senior vice president of public affairs, said in a statement.
Trying to break up Google harks back to a similar punishment initially imposed on Microsoft a quarter century ago following another major antitrust trial that culminated in a federal judge deciding the software maker had illegally used his Windows operating system for PCs to stifle competition.
However, an appeals court overturned an order that would have broken up Microsoft, a precedent many experts believe will make Mehta reluctant to go down a similar road with the Google case.
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BAKU, Azerbaijan — Human-caused climate change made Atlantic hurricanes about 29 kilometers per hour (18 miles per hour) stronger in the last six years, a new scientific study found Wednesday.
For most of the storms — 40 of them — the extra oomph from warmer oceans made the storms jump an entire hurricane category, according to the study published in the journal, Environmental Research: Climate. A Category 5 storm causes more than 400 times the damage of a minimal Category 1 hurricane, more than 140 times the damage of a minimal Category 3 hurricane and more than five times the damage of a minimal Category 4 storm, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
For three storms, including this month’s Rafael, the climate change factor goosed wind speed so much that the winds increased by two storm categories.
This isn’t about more storms but increasing power from the worst ones, authors said.
“We know that the intensity of these storms is causing a lot more catastrophic damage in general,” said lead study author Daniel Gifford, a climate scientist at Climate Central, which does research on global warming. “Damages do scale [up] with the intensity.”
The effect was especially noticeable in stronger storms, including those that made it to the top of the Saffir-Simpson scale of storm intensity: Category 5, study authors said. The study looked at 2019 to 2023, but the authors then did a quick addition for the named storms this year, all of which had a bump up due to climate change.
“We had two Category 5 storms here in 2024,” Gifford said. “Our analysis shows that we would have had zero Category 5 storms without human-caused climate change.”
This year’s three most devastating storms — Beryl, Helene and Milton — increased by 29 kph (18 mph), 26 kph (16 mph) and 39 kph (24 mph) respectively because of climate change, the authors said. A different study by World Weather Attribution had deadly Helene’s wind speed increase by about 20 kph (13 mph), which is close, said Imperial College London climate scientist Friederike Otto, who coordinates the WWA team and praised the Climate Central work.
“It absolutely makes sense from a fundamental standpoint that what’s going on is we’ve added more energy to the system,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Rick Spinrad said at United Nations climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan.
“The change is going to manifest in terms of what we’re already seeing. You look at Hurricane Helene, which was massive, 804 km [500 miles] across. We’re going to see changes in terms of the velocity of these storms. We’re going to see changes in terms of Hurricane Milton spawning so many tornadoes.”
Since 2019, eight storms — 2019’s Humberto, 2020’s Zeta, 2021’s Sam and Larry, 2022’s Earl, 2023’s Franklin and 2024’s Isaac and Rafael — increased by at least 40 kph (25 mph) in wind speed. Humberto and Zeta gained the most: 50 kph (31 mph).
In 85% of the storms studied in the last six years, the authors saw a fingerprint of climate change in storm strength, Gifford said.
Warm water is the main fuel of hurricanes. The warmer the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico get, the more potential energy goes into storms. Other factors — such as high-level crosswinds and dry air — can act to weaken hurricanes.
The waters in the hurricane area have increased by 1.1 to 1.6 degrees Celsius (2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit) in general and as much as 2.2 degrees C (4 degrees F) due to climate change, Gifford said. They know this because Climate Central has used scientifically accepted techniques to regularly track how much warmer oceans are because of the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.
That technique basically uses computer simulations to create a fictional world with no human-caused warming and then compares it to current reality, with the difference being caused by greenhouse gases. They account for other factors, such as the lessening amount of sulfate pollution from marine shipping which had been counteracting a bit of the warming before the skies cleared up more.
To go from warmer waters to stronger storms, the authors looked at a calculation called potential intensity, which is essentially the speed limit for any given storm based on the environmental conditions around it, Gifford said.
MIT hurricane expert and meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel, who pioneered potential intensity measurements, wasn’t part of the study but said it makes sense. It shows the increase in storm strength that he predicted would happen 37 years ago, he said.
Past studies have shown that climate change has made hurricanes intensify quicker, and move slower, which causes even more rain to be dumped.
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Making decorative gingerbread houses is a Christmas tradition in several countries. A New York City museum has gone a step further by using the humble holiday cookie to construct a stunning tribute to the Big Apple. Aron Ranen has the story.
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NEW YORK — Distant, ancient galaxies are giving scientists more hints that a mysterious force called dark energy may not be what they thought.
Astronomers know that the universe is being pushed apart at an accelerating rate and they have puzzled for decades over what could possibly be speeding everything up. They theorize that a powerful, constant force is at play, one that fits nicely with the main mathematical model that describes how the universe behaves. But they can’t see it and they don’t know where it comes from, so they call it dark energy.
It is so vast it is thought to make up nearly 70% of the universe — while ordinary matter like all the stars and planets and people make up just 5%.
But findings published earlier this year by an international research collaboration of more than 900 scientists from around the globe yielded a major surprise. As the scientists analyzed how galaxies move they found that the force pushing or pulling them around did not seem to be constant. And the same group published a new, broader set of analyses Tuesday that yielded a similar answer.
“I did not think that such a result would happen in my lifetime,” said Mustapha Ishak-Boushaki, a cosmologist at the University of Texas at Dallas who is part of the collaboration.
Called the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, it uses a telescope based in Tucson, Arizona to create a three-dimensional map of the universe’s 11-billion-year history to see how galaxies have clustered throughout time and across space. That gives scientists information about how the universe evolved, and where it might be heading.
The map they are building would not make sense if dark energy were a constant force, as it is theorized. Instead, the energy appears to be changing or weakening over time. If that is indeed the case, it would upend astronomers’ standard cosmological model. It could mean that dark energy is very different than what scientists thought — or that there may be something else altogether going on.
“It’s a time of great excitement, and also some head-scratching and confusion,” said Bhuvnesh Jain, a cosmologist at the University of Pennsylvania who is not involved with the research.
The collaboration’s latest finding points to a possible explanation from an older theory: that across billions of years of cosmic history, the universe expanded and galaxies clustered as Einstein’s general relativity predicted.
The new findings aren’t definitive. Astronomers say they need more data to overturn a theory that seemed to fit together so well. They hope observations from other telescopes and new analyses of the new data over the next few years will determine whether the current view of dark energy stands or falls.
“The significance of this result right now is tantalizing,” said Robert Caldwell, a physicist at Dartmouth College who is not involved with the research, “but it’s not like a gold-plated measurement.”
There’s a lot riding on the answer. Because dark energy is the biggest component of the universe, its behavior determines the universe’s fate, explained David Spergel, an astrophysicist and president of the Simons Foundation. If dark energy is constant, the universe will continue to expand, forever getting colder and emptier. If it’s growing in strength, the universe will expand so speedily that it’ll destroy itself in what astronomers call the Big Rip.
“Not to panic. If this is what’s going on, it won’t happen for billions of years,” he said. “But we’d like to know about it.”
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WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s top cleric has declared that virtual private networks, or VPNs, are unlawful, igniting a debate on privacy rights and access to information amid a government crackdown on the internet.
Allama Raghib Naeemi, head of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), issued a decree saying it makes no difference whether a VPN is registered or unregistered.
“If attempts are made to access indecent or immoral sites, character assassination is done, statements are being made against national security, or if various incidents of religious blasphemy are being spread through it, then [using] it would completely be un-Islamic,” he said.
A VPN protects online privacy by creating a secure connection and is used to access blocked content, protect data from hackers and support remote work or secure transactions.
Several internet service providers in Pakistan expressed concerns Tuesday over the possible imposition of blanket restrictions on VPNs, warning that the move would anger users and impact online businesses.
Shahzad Arshad, chairman of the Wireless and Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, said in a statement, “It is essential to recognize that blanket restrictions or sweeping narratives around tools like VPNs risk alienating segments of society, particularly those who rely on these tools for entirely legitimate purposes, such as IT exports, financial transactions, and academic research.”
Arshad, in reference to CII’s declaration, said technology is neutral and that how it is used determines whether it is aligned with ethics.
Amnesty Tech, part of Amnesty International, said last week on X that imposing restrictions on VPNs would amount to “violating the right to privacy under international law, restricting people’s access to information, and suppressing free expression.”
Qibla Ayaz, former chairman of CII, told VOA Deewa it seems as if a government agency has reached out to the religious body seeking its stance on the VPN issue.
“Similar requests were sent by the government in 2023,” he said.
The CII is a constitutional body in Pakistan that advises the legislature on whether a certain law is repugnant to Islam, namely to the Quran and Sunna.
According to activists and experts, CII’s declarations on technology use are unwarranted and will only strengthen the government’s digital suppression of social media users.
Haroon Baloch, a Pakistani digital rights activist, believes the proposed restrictions on VPNs are aimed at suppressing political dissent.
“First, the government had compliance challenges with X. And when the platform did not agree with the government’s requests, then it banned X. And when X was available with the help of VPN, the government is planning to ban the VPN now,” Haroon told VOA.
Pakistan banned X in February and installed firewalls to restrict access to certain online content. But consumers are using VPNs to access restricted networks and content and to hide their identities and locations.
Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir told a gathering at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute on November 16 that technology has played a pivotal role in the dissemination of information, but “the spread of misleading and incorrect information has become a significant challenge.”
In a speech to religious leaders in Islamabad earlier in August, Munir said, “Anarchy is spread through social media.”
A directive in October from the Interior Ministry asked the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to block “illegal” VPNs that had not registered by the end of November.
The Interior Ministry charged in a letter to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, which oversees the internet and mobile industry and has broad powers over online content and the licensing of service providers, that terrorists are increasingly using VPNs to facilitate violent activities and financial transactions in Pakistan.
“Of late, an alarming fact has been identified, wherein VPNs are used by terrorists to obscure and conceal their communications,” the letter said, adding that pornography sites are frequently accessed using VPNs.
“These trends … warrant the prohibition of unauthorized virtual private networks in order to address critical threats,” the letter said.
The 2024 “Freedom on the Net” report published by Freedom House says the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has historically implemented policies that undermine internet freedom, removed content without a transparent process and instituted wholesale bans on platforms.
This story originated in VOA’s Deewa Service.
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WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s top cleric has declared that virtual private networks, or VPNs, are unlawful, igniting a debate on privacy rights and access to information amid a government crackdown on the internet.
Allama Raghib Naeemi, head of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), issued a decree saying it makes no difference whether a VPN is registered or unregistered.
“If attempts are made to access indecent or immoral sites, character assassination is done, statements are being made against national security, or if various incidents of religious blasphemy are being spread through it, then [using] it would completely be un-Islamic,” he said.
A VPN protects online privacy by creating a secure connection and is used to access blocked content, protect data from hackers and support remote work or secure transactions.
Several internet service providers in Pakistan expressed concerns Tuesday over the possible imposition of blanket restrictions on VPNs, warning that the move would anger users and impact online businesses.
Shahzad Arshad, chairman of the Wireless and Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, said in a statement, “It is essential to recognize that blanket restrictions or sweeping narratives around tools like VPNs risk alienating segments of society, particularly those who rely on these tools for entirely legitimate purposes, such as IT exports, financial transactions, and academic research.”
Arshad, in reference to CII’s declaration, said technology is neutral and that how it is used determines whether it is aligned with ethics.
Amnesty Tech, part of Amnesty International, said last week on X that imposing restrictions on VPNs would amount to “violating the right to privacy under international law, restricting people’s access to information, and suppressing free expression.”
Qibla Ayaz, former chairman of CII, told VOA Deewa it seems as if a government agency has reached out to the religious body seeking its stance on the VPN issue.
“Similar requests were sent by the government in 2023,” he said.
The CII is a constitutional body in Pakistan that advises the legislature on whether a certain law is repugnant to Islam, namely to the Quran and Sunna.
According to activists and experts, CII’s declarations on technology use are unwarranted and will only strengthen the government’s digital suppression of social media users.
Haroon Baloch, a Pakistani digital rights activist, believes the proposed restrictions on VPNs are aimed at suppressing political dissent.
“First, the government had compliance challenges with X. And when the platform did not agree with the government’s requests, then it banned X. And when X was available with the help of VPN, the government is planning to ban the VPN now,” Haroon told VOA.
Pakistan banned X in February and installed firewalls to restrict access to certain online content. But consumers are using VPNs to access restricted networks and content and to hide their identities and locations.
Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir told a gathering at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute on November 16 that technology has played a pivotal role in the dissemination of information, but “the spread of misleading and incorrect information has become a significant challenge.”
In a speech to religious leaders in Islamabad earlier in August, Munir said, “Anarchy is spread through social media.”
A directive in October from the Interior Ministry asked the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to block “illegal” VPNs that had not registered by the end of November.
The Interior Ministry charged in a letter to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, which oversees the internet and mobile industry and has broad powers over online content and the licensing of service providers, that terrorists are increasingly using VPNs to facilitate violent activities and financial transactions in Pakistan.
“Of late, an alarming fact has been identified, wherein VPNs are used by terrorists to obscure and conceal their communications,” the letter said, adding that pornography sites are frequently accessed using VPNs.
“These trends … warrant the prohibition of unauthorized virtual private networks in order to address critical threats,” the letter said.
The 2024 “Freedom on the Net” report published by Freedom House says the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has historically implemented policies that undermine internet freedom, removed content without a transparent process and instituted wholesale bans on platforms.
This story originated in VOA’s Deewa Service.
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CHEYENNE, Wyoming — A state judge on Monday struck down Wyoming’s overall ban on abortion and its first-in-the-nation explicit prohibition on the use of medication to end pregnancy.
Since 2022, Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens has ruled consistently three times to block the laws while they were disputed in court.
The decision marks another victory for abortion rights advocates after voters in seven states passed measures in support of access.
One Wyoming law that Owens said violated women’s rights under the state constitution bans abortion except to protect a pregnant woman’s life or in cases involving rape and incest. The other made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban abortion pills, though other states have instituted de facto bans on the medication by broadly prohibiting abortion.
The laws were challenged by four women, including two obstetricians, and two nonprofit organizations. One of the groups, Wellspring Health Access, opened as the state’s first full-service abortion clinic in years in April 2023 following an arson attack in 2022.
“This is a wonderful day for the citizens of Wyoming — and women everywhere who should have control over their own bodies,” Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart said in a statement.
The recent elections saw voters in Missouri clear the way to undo one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans in a series of victories for abortion rights advocates. Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota, meanwhile, defeated similar constitutional amendments, leaving bans in place.
Abortion rights amendments also passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana. Nevada voters also approved an amendment in support of abortion rights, but they’ll need to pass it again in 2026 for it to take effect. Another that bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes” prevailed in New York.
The abortion landscape underwent a seismic shift in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a ruling that ended a nationwide right to abortion and cleared the way for bans to take effect in most Republican-controlled states.
Currently, 13 states are enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, and four have bans that kick in at or about six weeks into pregnancy — often before women realize they’re pregnant.
Nearly every ban has been challenged with a lawsuit. Courts have blocked enforcement of some restrictions, including bans throughout pregnancy in Utah and Wyoming. Judges struck down bans in Georgia and North Dakota in September 2024. Georgia’s Supreme Court ruled the next month that the ban there can be enforced while it considers the case.
In the Wyoming case, the women and nonprofits who challenged the laws argued that the bans stood to harm their health, well-being and livelihoods, claims disputed by attorneys for the state. They also argued the bans violated a 2012 state constitutional amendment saying competent Wyoming residents have a right to make their own health care decisions.
As she had done with previous rulings, Owens found merit in both arguments. The abortion bans “will undermine the integrity of the medical profession by hamstringing the ability of physicians to provide evidence-based medicine to their patients,” Owens ruled.
The abortion laws impede the fundamental right of women to make health care decisions for an entire class of people — those who are pregnant — in violation of the constitutional amendment, Owens ruled.
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California’s public health department reported a possible case of bird flu in a child with mild respiratory symptoms on Tuesday, but said there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus and that the child’s family members tested negative.
California officials said they have sent test specimens from the child to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for confirmation.
A CDC spokesperson said the agency is aware of the presumptive positive case of H5 avian influenza, is collaborating with the state’s investigation, and will provide further updates promptly. The agency has said the risk to the general public remains low.
Although human infections in the United States have been rare, bird flu has infected 53 people since April, according to the CDC, most recently a person in Oregon last week tied to a bird flu outbreak in a commercial poultry operation in the state.
In Canada, officials earlier this month reported that a teen infected with bird flu in British Columbia was in critical condition.
The child in California was in daycare with mild symptoms before the illness was reported, the state said.
Local health officials have contacted potentially exposed caregivers and families to check for symptoms and offer preventive treatment and testing if they become symptomatic.
The child and all close family members have been treated with preventive medication, the state said. The child had no known contact with an infected animal, but public health experts are investigating possible exposure to wild birds.
“It’s natural for people to be concerned, and we want to reinforce for parents, caregivers and families that based on the information and data we have, we don’t think the child was infectious,” said California health department director Dr. Tomas Aragon, adding, “and no human-to-human spread of bird flu has been documented in any country for more than 15 years.”
Most U.S. bird flu cases, including 26 in California, have occurred among farm workers working with poultry or dairy cows that were infected with the virus.
Because bird flu viruses can mutate and gain the ability to spread more easily between people, California public health officials said they are monitoring animal and human infections carefully.
The state urged residents to avoid contact with sick or dead wild birds and renewed the warning against consuming raw milk or raw milk products, which have not undergone pasteurization to inactivate the bird flu virus and other harmful pathogens.
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London — As the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan enters its final days, there are growing frustrations over the apparent lack of progress toward securing a deal on climate finance, which is seen as a crucial step in reducing emissions and limiting global warming.
Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s COP29 president, called on delegates to show more urgency.
“People have told me that they are concerned about the state of the negotiations,” Babayev told delegates Monday. “It’s time for them to move faster. This week we will welcome ministers from around the world as the negotiations reach their final stage.
“Politicians have the power to reach a fair and ambitious deal. They must deliver on this responsibility. They must engage immediately and constructively,” he said.
Climate finance
Money is at the center of the COP29 negotiations — or, in COP terms, climate finance. Who will pay for poorer countries to adapt to climate change and transition away from fossil fuels — and how much will it cost?
It’s hoped that the COP29 meeting will set an ambitious new funding target. Most estimates put the cost of climate finance in excess of $1 trillion every year. It’s reported that many richer nations are reluctant to agree to such an amount.
The current target of $100 billion annually, agreed in 2009, was met only in 2022.
‘Failed promises’
Bolivia’s representative at COP29, Diego Balanza — who chairs a negotiating bloc of developing nations — accused richer nations of a decade of failed promises.
“Our countries are suffering the impacts of climate change due largely to the historical emissions of developed countries. For us as developing countries, our people’s lives, their very survival and their livelihoods, are at stake,” Balanza told delegates in Baku.
He added that most of the climate finance so far has been provided through loans, not grants, which “has adverse implications for the macroeconomic stability of developing countries.”
Slow pace
Many observers have criticized the slow pace of negotiations in Baku. Mohamed Adow, director of the campaign group Power Shift Africa, accused the Azerbaijani hosts of a lack of direction.
“This has been one of the worst COPs — at least, one of the worst first weeks of COPs — that I have attended in the last 15 years,” Adow told VOA. “There has been very limited progress on climate finance and even on the rules around carbon markets and how the world is going to cut emissions.”
‘Theatrics’
Simon Stiell, the United Nations Climate Change executive secretary, on Monday called on parties to “cut the theatrics.”
“There is still a ton of work to do to ensure COP29 delivers. Parties need to be moving much faster towards landing zones. … I’ve been very blunt: climate finance is not charity. It is 100% in every nation’s interest to protect their economies and people from rampant climate impacts. Parties must wrap up less contentious issues early in the week, so there is enough time for the major political decisions,” Stiell said.
Emissions cuts
An ambitious COP29 deal on climate finance is meant to unlock the crucial next stage of negotiations. Ahead of next year’s COP30 in Brazil, all countries are due to deliver action plans on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, so-called ‘nationally determined contributions,’ with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, a key target of the 2016 Paris Agreement on climate change.
On the current trajectory, scientists estimate the world is heading for a likely catastrophic 2.7°C of warming by the end of the century, which is predicted to cause widespread extreme weather and sea level rise.
Trump shadow
Adow, the director of Power Shift Africa, fears the COP29 negotiations are being overshadowed by the recent U.S. presidential election win for Donald Trump.
Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement on climate change during his first term. His successor, Joe Biden, re-entered the deal on his first day in office.
“I think the cloud hovering over these talks is the known unknown, around the election of Donald Trump and what the Trump administration is going to do. So, you have the rich world, that is actually hiding behind Trump — and not wanting to respond to the calls that we’ve had from the developing countries on the US$1.3 trillion that they require for climate finance,” Adow told VOA.
The COP29 talks are due to close on Friday. The deadline could be extended if a deal is in sight.
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Artificial intelligence was much discussed and demonstrated at the Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town, South Africa earlier this month. The conference highlighted how technology is changing industries on the continent. Vicky Stark filed this report.
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NEW YORK — Arthur Frommer, whose “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day” guidebooks revolutionized leisure travel by convincing average Americans to take budget vacations abroad, has died. He was 95.
Frommer died from complications of pneumonia, his daughter Pauline Frommer said Monday.
“My father opened up the world to so many people,” she said. “He believed deeply that travel could be an enlightening activity and one that did not require a big budget.”
Frommer began writing about travel while serving in the U.S. Army in Europe in the 1950s. When a guidebook he wrote for American soldiers overseas sold out, he launched what became one of the travel industry’s best-known brands, self-publishing “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day” in 1957.
“It struck a chord and became an immediate best-seller,” he recalled in an interview with The Associated Press in 2007, on the 50th anniversary of the book’s debut.
The Frommer’s brand, led today by his daughter Pauline, remains one of the best-known names in the travel industry, with guidebooks to destinations around the world, an influential social media presence, podcasts and a radio show.
Frommer’s philosophy — stay in inns and budget hotels instead of five-star hotels, sightsee on your own using public transportation, eat with locals in small cafes instead of fancy restaurants — changed the way Americans traveled in the mid- to late 20th century. He said budget travel was preferable to luxury travel “because it leads to a more authentic experience.” That message encouraged average people, not just the wealthy, to vacation abroad.
It didn’t hurt that his books hit the market as the rise of jet travel made getting to Europe easier than crossing the Atlantic by ship. The books became so popular that there was a time when you couldn’t visit a place like the Eiffel Tower without spotting Frommer’s guidebooks in the hands of every other American tourist.
Frommer’s advice also became so standard that it’s hard to remember how radical it seemed in the days before discount flights and backpacks. “It was really pioneering stuff,” Tony Wheeler, founder of the Lonely Planet guidebook company, said in an interview in 2013. Before Frommer, Wheeler said, you could find guidebooks “that would tell you everything about the church or the temple ruin. But the idea that you wanted to eat somewhere and find a hotel or get from A to B — well, I’ve got a huge amount of respect for Arthur.”
“Arthur did for travel what Consumer Reports did for everything else,” said Pat Carrier, former owner of The Globe Corner, a travel bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The final editions of Frommer’s groundbreaking series were titled “Europe from $95 a Day.” The concept no longer made sense when hotels could not be had for less than $100 a night, so the series was discontinued in 2007. But the Frommer publishing empire did not disappear, despite a series of sales that started when Frommer sold the guidebook company to Simon & Schuster. It was later acquired by Wiley Publishing, which in turn sold it to Google in 2012. Google quietly shut the guidebooks down, but Arthur Frommer — in a David vs. Goliath triumph — got his brand back from Google. In November 2013 with his daughter Pauline, he relaunched the print series with dozens of new guidebook titles.
“I never dreamed at my age I’d be working this hard,” he told the AP at the time, age 84.
Frommer also remained a well-known figure in 21st century travel, opinionated to the end of his career, speaking out on his blog and radio show. He hated mega-cruise ships and railed against travel websites where consumers put up their own reviews, saying they were too easily manipulated with phony postings. And he coined the phrase “Trump Slump” in a widely quoted column that predicted a slump in tourism to the U.S. after Donald Trump was elected president.
Frommer was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, and grew up during the Great Depression in Jefferson City, Missouri, the child of a Polish father and Austrian mother. “My father had one job after another, one company after another that went bankrupt,” he recalled. The family moved to New York when he was a teenager. He worked as an office boy at Newsweek, went to New York University and was drafted upon graduating from Yale Law School in 1953. Because he spoke French and Russian, he was sent to work in Army intelligence at a U.S. base in Germany, where the Cold War was heating up.
His first glimpse of Europe was from the window of a military transport plane. Whenever he had a weekend leave or a three-day pass, he’d hop a train to Paris or hitch a ride to England on an Air Force flight. Eventually he wrote “The GI’s Guide to Traveling in Europe,” and a few weeks before his Army stint was up, he had 5,000 copies printed by a typesetter in a German village. They were priced at 50 cents apiece, distributed by the Army newspaper, Stars & Stripes.
Shortly after he returned to New York to practice law at the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, he received a cable from Europe. “The book was sold out, would I arrange a reprint?” he said.
Soon after he spent his month’s vacation from the law firm doing a civilian version of the guide. “In 30 days I went to 15 different cities, getting up at 4 a.m., running up and down the streets, trying to find good cheap hotels and restaurants,” he recalled.
The resulting book, the very first “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day,” was much more than a list. It was written with a wide-eyed wonder that verged on poetry: “Venice is a fantastic dream,” Frommer wrote. “Try to arrive at night when the wonders of the city can steal upon you piecemeal and slow. … Out of the dark, there appear little clusters of candy-striped mooring poles; a gondola approaches with a lighted lantern hung from its prow.”
Eventually Frommer gave up law to write the guides full-time. Daughter Pauline joined him with his first wife, Hope Arthur, on their trips starting in 1965, when she was 4 months old. “They used to joke that the book should be called ‘Europe on Five Diapers a Day,'” Pauline Frommer said.
In the 1960s, when inflation forced Frommer to change the title of the book to “Europe on 5 and 10 Dollars a Day,” he said “it was as if someone had plunged a knife into my head.”
Asked to summarize the impact of his books in a 2017 Associated Press interview, he said that in the 1950s, “most Americans had been taught that foreign travel was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, especially travel to Europe. They were taught that they were going to a war-torn country where it was risky to stay in any hotel other than a five-star hotel. It was risky to go into anything but a top-notch restaurant. … And I knew that all these warnings were a lot of nonsense.”
He added: “We were pioneers in also suggesting that a different type of American should travel, that you didn’t have to be well-heeled.”
To the end of his life, he said he avoided traveling first class. “I fly economy class and I try to experience the same form of travel, the same experience that the average American and the average citizen of the world encounters,” he said.
As Frommer aged, his daughter Pauline gradually became the force behind the company, promoting the brand, managing the business and even writing some of the content based on her own travels. Her relationship with her father was both tender and respectful, and she summed it up this way in a 2012 email to AP: “It’s wonderful to have a working partner whose mind is a steel trap, and who doesn’t just have smarts, but wisdom. His opinions, whether or not you agree with them, come from his social values. He’s a man who puts ethics at the center of his life, and weaves them into everything he does.”
In addition to Pauline, Frommer’s survivors include his second wife, Roberta Brodfeld, and four grandchildren.
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NAIROBI, KENYA — The spread of a mosquito in East Africa that thrives in urban areas and is immune to insecticide is fueling a surge in malaria that could reverse decades of progress against the disease, experts say.
Africa accounted for about 95% of the 249 million malaria cases and 608,000 deaths worldwide in 2022, according to the most recent data from the World Health Organization (WHO), which said children under 5 accounted for 80% of deaths in the region.
But the emergence of an invasive species of mosquito on the continent could massively increase those numbers.
Anopheles stephensi is native to parts of South Asia and the Middle East but was spotted for the first time in the tiny Horn of Africa state of Djibouti in 2012.
Djibouti had all but eradicated malaria only to see it make a slow but steady return over the following years, hitting more than 70,000 cases in 2020.
Then stephensi arrived in neighboring Ethiopia and WHO says it is key to an “unprecedented surge,” from 4.1 million malaria cases and 527 deaths last year to 7.3 million cases and 1,157 deaths between January 1 and October 20, 2024.
Unlike other species which are seasonal and prefer rural areas, stephensi thrives year-round in urban settings, breeding in man-made water storage tanks, roof gutters or even air conditioning units.
It appears to be highly resistant to insecticides, and bites earlier in the evening than other carriers. That means bed nets — up to now the prime weapon against malaria — may be much less effective.
“The invasion and spread of Anopheles stephensi has the potential to change the malaria landscape in Africa and reverse decades of progress we’ve made towards malaria control,” Meera Venkatesan, malaria division chief for USAID, told AFP.
More research is needed
The fear is that stephensi will infest dense cities like Mombasa on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast and Sudan’s capital Khartoum, with one 2020 study warning it could eventually reach 126 million city-dwellers across Africa.
Only last month, Egypt was declared malaria-free by WHO after a century-long battle against the disease — a status that could be threatened by stephensi’s arrival.
Much remains unknown, however.
Stephensi was confirmed as present in Kenya in late 2022, but has so far stayed in hotter, dryer areas without reaching the high-altitude capital, Nairobi.
“We don’t yet fully understand the biology and behavior of this mosquito,” Charles Mbogo, president of the Pan-African Mosquito Control Association, told AFP.
“Possibly it is climate-driven and requires high temperatures, but much more research is needed.”
He called for increased funding for capturing and testing mosquitos, and for educating the public on prevention measures such as covering water receptacles.
Multiplying threats
The spread of stephensi could dovetail with other worrying trends, including increased evidence of drug resistant malaria recorded in Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Eritrea.
“The arrival of resistance is imminent,” said Dorothy Achu, WHO’s head of tropical and vector-borne diseases in Africa.
WHO is working with countries to diversify treatment programmes to delay resistance, she said.
A new malaria variant is also evading tests used to diagnose the disease.
“The increased transmission that stephensi is driving could potentially help accelerate the spread of other threats, such as drug resistance or another mutation in the parasite that leads it to be less detectable by our most widely-used diagnostics,” said Venkatesan at USAID.
Another added challenge is the lack of coordination between African governments.
Achu said WHO is working on “a more continental approach”.
But Mbogo in Kenya said “more political will” was needed.
“We share information as scientists with colleagues in neighbouring countries,” he said. “But we need to reach the higher level. We need cross-border collaborations, data-sharing.”
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Cancer patients and advocates are urging authorities in Zimbabwe to ensure cancer centers have lifesaving equipment needed to properly treat patients. Some patients say public hospitals do not have working machines to provide radiotherapy. Columbus Mavhunga has more from Harare. (Camera: Columbus Mavhunga)
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ISANTI, Minn. — The young Buddhist lama sat on a throne near an altar decorated with flowers, fruits and golden statues of the Buddha, watching the celebrations of his 18th birthday in silence, with a faint smile.
Jalue Dorje knew it would be the last big party before he joins a monastery in the Himalayan foothills — thousands of kilometers from his home in a Minneapolis suburb, where he grew up like a typical American teen playing football and listening to rap music.
But this was not an ordinary coming-of-age celebration. It was an enthronement ceremony for an aspiring spiritual leader who from an early age was recognized by the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist leaders as a reincarnated lama.
From the stage, he saw it all: The young women in white long bearded masks who danced, jumping acrobatically and twirling colorful sticks to wish him luck in a tradition reserved for dignitaries. The banging of drums. The procession of hundreds – from children to elderly — who lined up to bow to him and present him with a “khata” — the white Tibetan ceremonial scarves that symbolize auspiciousness.
From a throne reserved for lamas, he smelled the aroma of Tibetan dishes prepared by his mother over sleepless nights. He heard the monks with shaved heads, in maroon and gold robes like his own, chant sacred mantras. Behind them, his shaggy-haired high school football teammates sang “Happy Birthday” before he cut the first slice of cake.
One of his buddies gave him shaker bottles for hydrating during training at the gym; another, a gift card to eat at Chipotle Mexican Grill.
“I was in awe!” Dorje recalled later. “Usually, I’d be at the monk section looking up to whomever was celebrating. But that night it was for me.”
Watching Monday Night Football and memorizing ancient Buddhist prayers
Since the Dalai Lama’s recognition, Dorje has spent much of his life training to become a monk, memorizing sacred scriptures, practicing calligraphy and learning the teachings of Buddha.
After graduation in 2025, he’ll head to northern India to join the Mindrolling Monastery, more than 11,500 kilometers from his home in Columbia Heights.
Following several years of contemplation and ascetism, he hopes to return to America to teach in the Minnesota Buddhist community. His goal is “to become a leader of peace,” following the example of the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and Gandhi.
“There’s going to be a lot of sacrifice involved,” Dorje said. But he’s not new to sacrifices.
He remembered all the early mornings reciting ancient prayers and memorizing Buddhist scriptures, often rewarded by his dad with Pokémon cards.
“As a child, even on the weekend, you’re like: ‘Why don’t I get to sleep more? Why can’t I get up and watch cartoons like other kids.’ But my dad always told me that it’s like planting a seed,” he said, “and one day it’s going to sprout.”
It all began with the process of identifying a lama, which is based on spiritual signs and visions. Dorje was about four months old when he was identified by Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche, a venerated master of Tibetan Buddhism and leader of the Nyingma lineage. He was later confirmed by several lamas as the eighth Terchen Taksham Rinpoche — the first one was born in 1655.
After the Dalai Lama recognized him at age 2, Dorje’s parents took him to meet the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism when he visited Wisconsin in 2010.
The Dalai Lama cut a lock of Dorje’s hair in a ceremony and advised his parents to let their son stay in the U.S. to perfect his English before sending him to a monastery.
Dorje is fluent in English and Tibetan. He grew up reading the manga graphic novel series “Buddha,” and is an avid sports fan. He roots for the Timberwolves in basketball, Real Madrid in soccer, and the Atlanta Falcons in football. He even keeps a rookie card of wide receiver Drake London pasted to the back of his phone, which he carried wrapped in his robes during his party.
On the football field, playing as a left guard, his teammates praised his positivity, often reminding them to have fun and keep losses in perspective.
“It’s someone to look up to,” said Griffin Hogg, 20, a former player who took Dorje under his wing. He said they learned from each other and credits Dorje with helping him find his spirituality. “I’m more of a relaxed person after getting to know him and understanding his own journey.”
While Dorje tries to never miss Monday Night Football, he’s always there to help with any event hosted by the local Tibetan community, one of the largest in the United States.
“He has one foot in the normal high school life. And he has one foot in this amazing Tibetan culture that we have in the state of Minnesota,” said Kate Thomas, one of his tutors and the teachings coordinator at Minneapolis’ Bodhicitta Sangha Heart of Enlightenment Institute.
“You can see that he’s comfortable playing a role of sitting on a throne, of participating and being honored as a respected person in his community, as a religious figure. And yet, as soon as he has the opportunity, he wants to go and hang out with his high school buddies,” she said. “That’s testimony to his flexibility, his openness of mind.”
Listening to rap and making Tibetans proud
For years, he has followed the same routine. He wakes up to recite sacred texts and then attends school, followed by football practice. He returns home for tutoring about Tibetan history and Buddhism. Then he might practice calligraphy or run on a treadmill while listening to BossMan Dlow, Rod Wave and other rappers.
Although he was officially enthroned in 2019 in India, an estimated 1,000 people gathered at the Tibetan American Foundation of Minnesota for his recent ceremony.
“He unites us – Jalue is always here for us,” said Zenden Ugen, 21, a family friend and neighbor who performed Tibetan dances at the event.
“I wish him the best in life because being born and not being able to choose your life must be very hard,” Ugen said. “But he has a responsibility and him being able to take on that responsibility, I’m very inspired by him. I just hope he keeps being who he is.”
Dorje’s proud uncle, Tashi Lama, saw him grow up and become a Buddhist master.
“He’s somebody who’s going to be a leader, who’s going to teach compassion and peace and love and harmony among living beings,” he said about his nephew, often referred to as “Rinpoche” — a Tibetan word that means “precious one.”
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warsaw, poland — Poland’s health authorities on Monday urged polio vaccinations for children after the virus was detected in Warsaw’s sewage during regular tests this month.
The state Main Sanitary Inspectorate in a statement said the presence of the virus does not necessarily mean people have been sick, but those who have not been vaccinated against polio could be at risk. The vaccinations are free in Poland for people under 19.
New measures also include more intensive testing of Warsaw’s sewage, renewing the vaccination stocks and updating the list of children still unvaccinated. Polio is most often spread by contact with waste from an infected person or, less frequently, through contaminated water or food.
The polio virus mostly affects children under 5. Most people infected don’t have symptoms, but in severe cases, polio can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis within hours, according to the World Health Organization. It estimates that 1 in 200 polio cases results in permanent paralysis, usually of the legs.
Poland’s inspectorate said about 86% of the country’s 3-year-olds have been vaccinated against polio and that vaccinating at least 95% of children can prevent the spread of the virus. Poland has seen the rise of anti-vaccination movements among some parents, which has worried health officials.
The statement said Poland’s last case of polio was in 1984.
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The rise of AI tools like ChatGPT has sparked debate in higher education, raising questions about ethics and integrity in teaching, learning and knowledge creation. In South Africa, some academic institutions are taking a proactive approach, integrating AI into their curricula. Experts say this step is not only innovative but also helps level the playing field among students. Zaheer Cassim reports from Johannesburg.
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BAKU, Azerbaijan — United Nations climate talks resumed Monday with negotiators urged to make progress on a stalled-out deal that could see developing countries get more money to spend on clean energy and adapting to climate-charged weather extremes.
U.N. Climate Change executive secretary Simon Stiell called for countries to “cut the theatrics and get down to real business.”
“We will only get the job done if Parties are prepared to step forward in parallel, bringing us closer to common ground,” Stiell said to a room of delegates in Baku, Azerbaijan. “I know we can get this done.”
Climate and environment ministers from around the world have arrived at the summit to help push the talks forward.
“Politicians have the power to reach a fair and ambitious deal,” said COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev at a press conference at the venue. “They must deliver and engage immediately and constructively.”
Climate cash is still a sticking point
Talks in Baku are focused on getting more climate cash for developing countries to transition away from fossil fuels, adapt to climate change and pay for damages caused by extreme weather. But countries are far apart on how much money that will require.
A group of developing nations last week put the sum at $1.3 trillion, while rich countries are yet to name a figure. Several experts estimated that the money needed for climate finance is around $1 trillion.
“We all know it is never easy in politics and in international politics to talk about money, but the cost of action today is, as a matter of fact, much lower than the cost of inaction,” said Wopke Hoekstra, the EU climate commissioner at press conference.
“We will continue to lead to do our fair share and even more than our fair share, as we’ve always done,” he said. But Hoekstra added that “others have a responsibility to contribute based on their emissions and based on their economic growth too.”
Teresa Anderson, the Global Lead on Climate Justice at ActionAid International, was skeptical about rich countries’ intentions.
“The concern is that the pressure to add developing countries to the list of contributors is not, in fact, about raising more money for frontline countries,” Anderson said. “Rich countries are just trying to point the finger and have an excuse to provide less finance. That’s not the way to address runaway climate breakdown, and is a distraction from the real issues at stake.”
Rachel Cleetus from the Union of Concerned Scientists said $1 trillion in global climate funds “is going to look like a bargain five, 10 years from now.”
“We’re going to wonder why we didn’t take that and run with it,” she said, citing a multitude of costly recent extreme weather events from flooding in Spain to hurricanes Helene and Milton in the United States.
Robert Habeck, Germany’s climate and economic affairs minister said rich nations shouldn’t try to stop developing nations from producing more energy, but it has to come from cleaner sources.
“They have the same right to create same work, same education and health system,” he said. “On other hand, if we’re they are doing the same as we did for 100 years of burning fossil energy, that is completely messed up.”
Climate watchers keep an eye on Rio and Paris
Meanwhile, the world’s biggest decision makers are halfway around the world as another major summit convenes. Brazil is hosting the Group of 20 summit, which runs Nov. 18-19, bringing together many of the world’s largest economies. Climate change — among other major topics like rising global tensions and poverty — will be on the agenda.
COP President Babayev said the world “cannot succeed” in its climate goals without G20 nations.
“We urge them to use the G20 meeting to send a positive signal of their commitment to addressing the climate crisis. We want them to provide clear mandates to deliver,” he said.
Harjeet Singh, global engagement director for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, said G20 nations “cannot turn their backs on the reality of their historical emissions and the responsibility that comes with it.”
“They must commit to trillions in public finance,” he said.
Also on Monday, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has been mulling a proposal to cut public spending for foreign fossil fuel projects. The OECD — made up of 38 member countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan and Germany — are discussing a deal that could prevent up to $40 billion worth of carbon-polluting projects.
At COP29, activists are protesting the U.S., South Korea, Japan, and Turkey who they say are the key holdouts preventing the agreement in Paris from being finalized.
“It’s of critical importance that President Biden comes out in support. We know it’s really important that he lands a deal that Trump cannot undo. This can be really important for Biden’s legacy,” said Lauri van der Burg, Global Public Finance Lead at Oil Change international. “If he comes around, this will help mount pressure on other laggards including Korea, Turkey and Japan.”
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