Day: September 19, 2023

Children are returning to class in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains less than two weeks after a 6.8 magnitude earthquake killed and injured thousands of people there and razed whole villages. With about 600 area schools destroyed, many students will be studying in tents for now, or in the nearest city of Marrakesh. Lisa Bryant reports from the town of Amizmiz

A new U.N. treaty to protect the world’s oceans is expected to be signed by dozens of countries on Wednesday, another step in the efforts to reverse the damage done to fragile marine environments by overfishing and other human activities.

The global pact to conserve biodiversity on the high seas was finally agreed in March and formally adopted by the United Nations in June. It is seen as a crucial tool to meet a target agreed last year to protect 30% of the earth’s land and sea by 2030, known as “30 by 30“.

At least 60 countries are expected to sign the agreement at the annual United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday. However, it still needs to be ratified on a national level before it goes into effect.

Mads Christensen, interim executive director of Greenpeace International, described the signings as a “powerful signal” and help maintain momentum to meet the “30 by 30” target.

“But this signing is a purely symbolic moment,” he said. “Now politicians must bring the treaty home and ensure it is ratified in record time.”

The agreement will create ocean sanctuaries where fishing will be prohibited, and also ensure human activity on the high seas is subject to environmental impact assessments.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature estimates that $500 million in funding will be required to kickstart the treaty, and a special implementation and capacity-building fund could require another $100 million per year.

Threats to the ocean environment have been mounting in recent years as a result of overfishing as well as rising temperatures, and new threats could also emerge from ocean-bed mining and the use of geoengineering technologies to boost the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide.

Environmental groups say the treaty must be brought fully into effect by 2025 at the latest to ensure the “30-by-30” protection target is reached.

“The ocean can’t wait, and with the treaty being in the making for the better part of the past 20 years, there is absolutely no time to waste,” said Jessica Battle, an ocean expert with the Worldwide Fund for Nature.

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Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s brain-chip startup Neuralink said on Tuesday it has received approval from an independent review board to begin recruitment for the first human trial of its brain implant for paralysis patients. 

Those with paralysis due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis may qualify for the study, Neuralink said, but did not reveal how many participants would be enrolled in the trial, which will take about six years to complete. 

The study will use a robot to surgically place a brain-computer interface implant in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move, Neuralink said, adding that its initial goal is to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone. 

The company, which had earlier hoped to receive approval to implant its device in 10 patients, was negotiating a lower number of patients with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after the agency raised safety concerns, according to current and former employees. It is not known how many patients the FDA ultimately approved. 

Musk has grand ambitions for Neuralink, saying it would facilitate speedy surgical insertions of its chip devices to treat conditions such as obesity, autism, depression and schizophrenia.  

In May, the company said it had received clearance from the FDA for its first-in-human clinical trial, when it was already under federal scrutiny for its handling of animal testing. 

Even if the BCI device proves to be safe for human use, it would still potentially take more than a decade for the startup to secure commercial use clearance for it, according to experts. 

(NewsNation) — Recent high-profile inmate escapes have some asking what is going on in jails and prisons across America?

No federal database exists that tracks escapes around the country. Experts, though, told NewsNation’s Brian Entin these inmate escapes are more common than the public may think — they just don’t get the same attention that the recent incident in Pennsylvania does.

It was there that an inmate crab-walked his way out of Chester County Prison, and went on the run for 14 days before being apprehended by police.

Experts say a major reason these escapes happen is the massive shortage of correctional officers, which is an issue happening around the country.

Contributing to this shortage is low pay, which causes facilities to have a hard time retaining people.

The median annual wage for correctional officers and jailers was 49,610 in May 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Different states have come up with their own solutions for this, at least in the short term. Florida, for instance, activated the National Guard to assist the Florida Department of Corrections last year because there is such a serious shortage.

“I think you need to have, quite frankly, politicians that have the courage to say that this is important,” law enforcement expert Jorge Colina said.

A lot of elected officials have no problem saying they support law enforcement, Colina said, but they’re not putting their money where their mouth is.

“When there’s a budget item that comes up that speaks to a jail facility, whether it’s cameras, additional personnel, whether it’s enhancements to the facility, they don’t want to sponsor that,” Colina said.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in for the first time in person on Tuesday, marking a major milestone as the two countries have been slowly improving their ties.

Once close regional allies, relations between Israel and Turkey were strained for more than a decade, with Ankara having expelled Israel’s ambassador following a 2010 Israeli raid on a ship that led a flotilla carrying aid to Gaza, which killed 10 Turkish citizens.

Diplomatic relations were restored in 2016, but two years later Turkey recalled its diplomats from Israel and expelled Israeli envoys when Israeli forces killed a number of Palestinians who had taken part in protests in the Gaza Strip.

A visit to Turkey by Israeli President Isaac Herzog in March 2022, followed by visits by both foreign ministers, helped warm relations after more than a decade of tensions.

The two leaders discussed political, economic and regional topics as well as the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the Turkish Presidency said in a post on social media platform X about their meeting during the annual high-level United Nations General Assembly.

Erdogan told Netanyahu that the two countries can cooperate on energy, technology, innovation, artificial intelligence as well as cyber security, the presidency said.

Energy has emerged as a main area for potential cooperation.

“In the meeting, opportunities for energy cooperation primarily in areas like natural gas exploration, production and trade were discussed,” said Turkey’s Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar, who participated.

Turkey also began a charm offensive in 2020 to repair ties with estranged rivals, making overtures to Egypt, the UAE, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

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At the U.N. General Assembly in New York, U.S. President Joe Biden sought to convince world leaders that his vision of American leadership and multilateral approach to foreign policy will help solve the world’s most pressing problems. He again denounced Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine as a violation of a core tenet of the U.N. Charter. VOA White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report from New York.

President Nicolas Maduro says a “new Venezuela” is rising and he wants journalists to report this “truth.” However, editors and journalists working in the country say those whose reports are critical of his administration can find themselves accused of promoting a “hate campaign” or the target of “selective repression.”

Throughout his tenure, Maduro has called out journalists for critical coverage, from the AFP to VOA’s Spanish Language service.

On Monday, Maduro described the Argentine site InfoBae as “idiots” and “imbecile media” after a report on the president’s visit to China referred to him as a dictator. He also accused a Miami-based broadcaster of profiting from opposition leaders.

Free speech organizations have said that Maduro’s administration is using “selective repression” against dissidents and journalists who contradict the official narrative.

Media organizations tracking harassment and smear campaigns directed at Venezuela’s journalists say such rhetoric from the country’s leaders makes it harder to do independent journalism.

“It increases the risk of aggression, of forced detention and censorship by the authorities. The journalist, of course, is no longer received in public institutions, or not invited to press conferences for the ruling party, said Cesar Batiz, co-founder and director of the media outlet El Pitazo.

“This happened not only in the time of Maduro,” Batiz said. “It was also very frequent, and it was more dangerous in the time of [former president Hugo] Chávez.”

Espacio Publico, a Venezuelan NGO, said  in its annual report that 2022 had been “a particularly difficult year” for media outlets.

“They not only had to overcome the multidimensional crisis [in Venezuela], but also came face-to-face with restrictive policies that seek to reduce the media ecosystem,” Espacio Publico said in its report.

Already in 2023 it has documented 261 violations related to censorship and acts of intimidation.

Another Venezuelan media association, the Press and Society Institute or IPYS, documented 373 attacks against freedom of information in the country last year and more than 60 cases of media work being criminalized or smeared.

The IPYS found radio stations most affected, with more than 100 ordered to be closed by the broadcasting committee known as Conatel.

The Ministry of Communication did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.

‘Shackled’ press

Carlos Alaimo, president and chief editor of Version Final, a newspaper from Zulia state, told VOA that journalism in Venezuela is “incomplete” because of fear of an “excessive criminal legal action if the wrong government fibers are touched” by the local press.

“Any critical journalism will always be a target for the government, you have to work on constant alert,” said Alaimo, adding that the press is “shackled.”

His media outlet had to stop its daily print run because of a lack of paper for the newspaper. Alaimo says he believes Version Final lost access to supplies because of its independent reporting.

“We lost advertisers who historically bet on the print medium. Even today, our sponsors are few due to the fear that the authoritarian model [in Venezuela] generates in businessmen. All of this hit — and continues to hit — our financial health very hard,” Alaimo said.

Version Final used to have 120 workers and provided incomes for more than 600 people. That structure “was clearly affected” when the print version stopped, he said.

Government calls press an ‘enemy’

Other journalists say that the pressure has made it harder to get people to speak on the record.

Víctor Amaya, an editor of TalCual, a news website based in Caracas that had a printed version until 2017, talks about how the government has promoted the notion that the press is an “enemy.”

Now, the access to official sources is “compromised” and many people on the streets are reluctant to speak with TalCual’s journalists.

“People feel vulnerable by sharing their thoughts” to the press, Amaya told VOA.

The number of their advertisers has been reducing “little by little” in recent years, especially since they migrated completely to their digital edition.

In both their printed and digital versions, clients often ask them to publish their advertisements in sections about sports, culture, or international news, what journalists occasionally call “soft news,” Amaya said.

According to Amaya, the financial ability of Venezuelan outlets to fulfill their mission is “limited” when there are fewer advertisers than in previous years.

The United Auto Workers union is striking against all three major U.S. automotive manufacturers, seeking higher wages and other benefits. As negotiations continue, the same manufacturers are showcasing their latest offerings at the 2023 Detroit Auto Show, an annual celebration of cars and trucks that has changed to reflect consumer demand and new technology. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Detroit.

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