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  • Biden tells U.N. General Assembly peace still possible in conflicts in Mideast and Ukraine

    Biden tells U.N. General Assembly peace still possible in conflicts in Mideast and Ukraine

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    MIDTOWN EAST, Manhattan — President Joe Biden declared the U.S. must not retreat from the world, as he delivered his final address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday as Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon edged toward all-out war and Israel’s bloody operation against Hamas in Gaza neared the one-year mark.

    Biden used his wide-ranging address to speak to a need to end the Middle East conflict and the 17-month-old civil war in Sudan and to highlight U.S. and Western allies’ support for Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

    His appearance before the international body also offered Biden one of his last high-profile opportunities as president to make the case to keep up robust support for Ukraine, which could be in doubt if former President Donald Trump, who has scoffed at the cost of the war, defeats Vice President Kamala Harris in November. Still, Biden insisted that despite global conflicts, he remains hopeful for the future.

    CeFaan Kim reports the Lower East Side.

    “I’ve seen a remarkable sweep of history,” Biden said. “I know many look at the world today and see difficulties and react with despair but I do not.”

    “We are stronger than we think” when the world acts together, he added.

    Biden came to office promising to rejuvenate U.S. relations around the world and to extract the U.S. from “forever wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq that consumed American foreign policy over the last 20 years.

    “I was determined to end it, and I did,” Biden said of the Afghanistan exit, calling it a “hard decision but the right decision.” He acknowledged that it was “accompanied by tragedy” with the deaths of 13 American troops and hundreds of Afghans in a suicide bombing during the chaotic withdrawal.

    Biden in farewell U.N. address says peace still possible in conflicts in Mideast and Ukraine

    But his foreign policy legacy may ultimately be shaped by his administration’s response to two of the biggest conflicts in Europe and the Middle East since World War II.

    “There will always be forces that pull our countries apart,” Biden said, rejecting “a desire to retreat from the world and go it alone.” He said, “Our task, our test, is to make sure that the forces holding us together are stronger than the forces pulling us apart.”

    The Pentagon announced Monday that it was sending a small number of additional U.S. troops to the Middle East to supplement the roughly 40,000 already in the region. All the while, the White House insists Israel and Hezbollah still have time to step back and de-escalate.

    “Full scale war is not in anyone’s interest,” Biden said, and despite escalating violence, a diplomatic solution is the only path to peace.

    Biden had a hopeful outlook for the Middle East when he addressed the U.N. just a year ago. In that speech, Biden spoke of a “sustainable, integrated Middle East” coming into view.

    At the time, economic relations between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors were improving with implementation of the Abraham Accords that Israel signed with Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates during the Trump administration.

    Biden’s team helped resolve a long-running Israel-Lebanon maritime dispute that had held back gas exploration in the region. And Israel-Saudi normalization talks were progressing, a game-changing alignment for the region if a deal could be landed.

    “I suffer from an oxymoron: Irish optimism,” Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when they met on the sidelines of last year’s U.N. gathering. He added, “If you and I, 10 years ago, were talking about normalization with Saudi Arabia … I think we’d look at each other like, ‘Who’s been drinking what?’”

    Eighteen days later, Biden’s Middle East hopes came crashing down. Hamas militants stormed into Israel killing 1,200, taking some 250 hostage, and spurring a bloody war that has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza and led the region into a complicated downward spiral.

    Now, the conflict is threatening to metastasize into a multi-front war and leave a lasting scar on Biden’s presidential legacy.

    Israel and Hezbollah traded strikes again Tuesday as the death toll from a massive Israeli bombardment climbed to nearly 560 people and thousands fled from southern Lebanon. It’s the deadliest barrage since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

    Israel has urged residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate from homes and other buildings where it claimed Hezbollah has stored weapons, saying the military would conduct “extensive strikes” against the militant group.

    Hezbollah, meanwhile, has launched dozens of rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel in retaliation for strikes last week that killed a top commander and dozens of fighters. Dozens were also killed last week and hundreds more wounded after hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah militants exploded, a sophisticated attack that was widely believed to have been carried out by Israel.

    Israel’s leadership launched its counterattacks at a time of growing impatience with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah’s persistent launching of missiles and drones across the Israel-Lebanon border after Hamas started the war with its brazen attack on Oct. 7.

    Biden has seemed more subdued in recent days about the prospects of Israel and Hamas agreeing to a temporary cease-fire and hostage deal. But he insists that he hasn’t given up.

    Biden used his remarks to condemn the “horrors” of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 and said hostages taken by the group are “are going through hell.” He added, “Innocent civilians in Gaza are also going through hell.” Biden also condemned settler violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.

    Biden reiterated his call on the parties to agree to a cease-fire and hostage release deal, saying it’s time to “end this war” – even as hopes for such a deal are fading as the conflict drags on.

    Biden, in his address, called for the sustainment of Western support for Ukraine in its war with Russia. Biden helped galvanize an international coalition to back Ukraine with weapons and economic aid in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 assault on Ukraine.

    “We cannot grow weary,” Biden said. “We cannot look away.”

    Biden has managed to keep up American support in the face of rising skepticism from some Republican lawmakers – and Trump – about the cost of the conflict.

    At the same time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is pressing Biden to loosen restrictions on the use of Western-supplied long-range missiles so that Ukrainian forces can hit deeper in Russia.

    So far Zelenskyy has not persuaded the Pentagon or White House to loosen those restrictions. The Defense Department has emphasized that Ukraine can already hit Moscow with Ukrainian-produced drones, and there is hesitation on the strategic implications of a U.S.-made missile potentially striking the Russian capital.

    Putin has warned that Russia would be “at war” with the United States and its NATO allies if they allow Ukraine to use the long-range weapons.

    Biden and Harris are scheduled to hold separate meetings with Zelenskyy in Washington on Thursday. Ukrainian officials were also trying to arrange a meeting for Zelenskyy with Trump this week.

    In Sudan, where a humanitarian disaster has been created by a brutal civil war, Biden said “the world needs to stop arming the generals” and to tell them to “stop tearing this country apart.”

    The entirety of Midtown East in Manhattan is expected to be snarled as numerous streets have been closed in anticipation of the week-long session.

    Several protests are slated to take place, which will add to the congestion and heightened security in the area of the United Nations.

    RELATED | NYC Gridlock Alert Days 2024 are back with the start of the U.N. General Assembly

    Heather O’Rourke has the latest on the UN General Assembly.

    Miller reported from Washington. AP writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

    ———-

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  • Biden to deliver final speech to U.N. General Assembly as president

    Biden to deliver final speech to U.N. General Assembly as president

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    President Biden on Tuesday will deliver what will be his final speech to the United Nations General Assembly — and it’s also likely to be one of his last speeches on the world stage as president, capping a decades-long political career that has focused heavily on foreign policy.

    The 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, colloquially known as UNGA, is bringing leaders from across the globe to New York. A senior administration official told reporters the themes of the president’s speech will encompass many of his foreign policy themes throughout his administration — rallying the world around Ukraine, managing global competition and emphasizing the importance of sustaining the U.N. Charter. 

    “He came into office four years ago with a vision of America returning to the world stage, having a new way of interacting with other countries bringing countries together to solve some of those big challenges,” a senior administration official told reporters. 

    The official said the speech will be a chance for the president to “review” some of the foreign policy objectives Mr. Biden has achieved. 

    It’s a busy week in foreign policy for the president, who met with the leaders of the Indo-Pacific nations — Japan, Australia and India — over the weekend at his Wilmington, Delaware home. He’ll be meeting with world leaders on the sidelines of UNGA, as well as meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House Thursday. 

    The unyielding tension in the Middle East promises to dominate much of the conference, and a senior administration official said the president will address what’s happening there. The senior official called the situation between Israel and Lebanon “delicate and dangerous.”

    Missiles slammed into southern Lebanon on Monday, killing nearly 500 people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, as Israel said it was targeting Hezbollah weapons hidden in residential buildings. The explosions came as Israel heralded a new wave of attacks on the Iran-backed group in Lebanon, warning civilians to flee from any buildings or areas where the organization had weapons or fighters positioned.

    Mr. Biden has said he believes a cease-fire and hostage negotiation agreement is close, but nearly one year after the deadly Hamas attack on Israel that incited the war, a deal remains elusive. Earlier this month, Mr. Biden said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t doing enough to secure a deal. 

    Last month, Hamas executed six of the people the group has been holding hostage, including an American citizen. 

    At UNGA last year, a major focus was Russia’s continued war on Ukraine was a focus for Mr. Biden, who has emphasized the necessity of protecting democracy throughout his presidency and campaigns for president. 

    Following former President Donald Trump’s presidency, which had more isolationist tendencies toward allies, Mr. Biden has emphasized that close relationships with allies is in America’s best interest. 

    “To deliver for our own people, we must also engage deeply with the rest of the world,” Mr. Biden said during his UNGA speech last year. “To ensure that our own future, we must work together with other partners — our partners — toward a shared future. Our security, our prosperity, and our very freedoms are interconnected, in my view, as never before. And so, I believe we must work together as never before.”

    Kathryn Watson

    Kathryn Watson is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital, based in Washington, D.C.

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  • Sri Lanka’s plantation workers live on the margins. But politicians still want their votes

    Sri Lanka’s plantation workers live on the margins. But politicians still want their votes

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    SPRING VALLEY, Sri Lanka (AP) — Whoever Sri Lanka’s next president is, Muthuthevarkittan Manohari isn’t expecting much to change in her daily struggle to feed the four children and elderly mother with whom she lives in a dilapidated room in a tea plantation.

    Both leading candidates in Saturday’s presidential election are promising to give land to the country’s hundreds of thousands of plantation workers, but Manohari says she’s heard it all before. Sri Lanka’s plantation workers are a long-marginalized group who frequently live in dire poverty, but they can swing elections by voting as a bloc.

    Mahohari and her family are descended from Indian indentured laborers who were brought in by the British during colonial rule to work on plantations that grew first coffee, and later tea and rubber. Those crops are still Sri Lanka’s leading foreign exchange earners.

    Muthuthewarkittan Manohari, a tea plantation worker, gets ready to go to work in a tea factory in Spring Valley Estate in Badulla, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

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    Muthuthewarkittan Manohari, a tea plantation worker, right, bathes her younger daughter Madubhashini, as her elder daughter Shalani, center, stands at the doorway of their small house in Spring Valley Estate in Badulla, Sri Lanka, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

    For 200 years, the community has lived on the margins of Sri Lankan society. Soon after the country became independent in 1948, the new government stripped them of citizenship and voting rights. Around 400,000 people were deported to India under an agreement with Delhi, separating many families.

    The community fought for its rights, winning in stages until achieving full recognition as citizens in 2003.

    Over 50 countries go to the polls in 2024

    There are around 1.5 million descendants of plantation workers living in Sri Lanka today, including about 3.5% of the electorate, and some 470,000 people still live on plantations. The plantation community has the highest levels of poverty, malnutrition, anaemia among women and alcoholism in the country, and some of the lowest levels of education.

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    In this combo photograph, women tea plantation workers, clockwise from top left, Kanakambige Velayudan, Kaariman Thangamma, Tharmaraj Kaladevi, Dharmawathi, Kumaralingum Kamala, and Nadaraja Chitramani pose for a photograph during a break in their work at a tea plantation in Badulla, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

    They’re an important voting bloc, turned out by unions that double as political parties that ally with the country’s major parties.

    Despite speaking the Tamil language, they’re treated as a distinct group from the island’s indigenous Tamils, who live mostly in the north and east. Still, they suffered during the 26-year civil war between government forces and Tamil Tiger separatists. Plantation workers and their descendants faced mob violence, arrests and imprisonment because of their ethnicity.

    Most plantation workers live in crowded dwellings called “line houses,” owned by plantation companies. Tomoya Obokata, a U.N. special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, said after a visit in 2022 that five to ten people often share a single 10-by-12-foot (3.05-by-3.6 meter) room, often without windows, a proper kitchen, running water or electricity. Several families frequently share a single basic latrine.

    There are no proper medical facilities in the plantations, and the sick are attended to by so-called estate medical assistants who do not have medical degrees.

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    Tea plantation worker Muthuthewarkittan Manohari, far right, bathes her younger daughter Madubhashini outside their small living quarters in Spring Valley estate in Badulla, Sri Lanka, Monday, Sep. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

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    A tea plantation worker carries a sack of tea leaves as another plucks tea leaves at Spring Valley Estate in Badulla, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

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    Tea plantation workers weigh plucked tea leaves at Spring Valley Estate in Badulla, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

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    A tea plantation worker carries a bundle of tea leaves on her head at Spring Valley Estate in Badulla, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

    “These substandard living conditions, combined with the harsh working conditions, represent clear indicators of forced labour and may also amount to serfdom in some instances,” Obokata wrote in a report to the U.N. high commissioner for human rights.

    The government has made some efforts to improve conditions for the planation workers, but years of fiscal crisis and the resistance of powerful plantation companies have blunted progress. Access to education has improved, and a small group of entrepreneurs, professionals and academics descended from planation workers has emerged.

    This year, the government negotiated a raise in the minimum daily wage for a plantation worker to 1,350 rupees ($4.50) per day, plus an additional dollar if a worker picks more than 22 kilos in a day. Workers say this target is almost impossible to achieve, in part because tea bushes are often neglected and grow sparsely.

    The government has built better houses for some families and the Indian government is helping to build more, said Periyasamy Muthulingam, executive director of Sri Lanka’s Institute of Social Development, which works on plantation worker rights.

    But many promises have gone unfulfilled. “All political parties have promised to build better houses during elections but they don’t implement it when they are in power,” Muthulingam said.

    Muthulingam says more than 90% of the planation community is landless because they have been left out of the government’s land distribution programs.

    Image

    Tea plantation workers at Spring Valley Estate walk past an election poster with a portrait of the Sri Lankan president Ranil Wickremesinghe, ahead of the country’s presidential election, in Badulla, Sri Lanka, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

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    Tea plantation workers cheer for their political leaders during a presidential election rally in Thalawakele, Sri Lanka, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

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    Tea plantation workers attend a presidential election rally in Thalawakele, Sri Lanka, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

    In this election, sitting President Ranil Wickremesinghe standing as an independent candidate has promised to give the line houses and the land they stand on to the people who live in them, and help develop them into villages. The main opposition candidate, Sajith Premadasa, has promised to break up the plantations and distribute the land to the workers as small holdings.

    Both proposals will face resistance from the plantation companies.

    Manohari says she’s not holding out hope. She’s more concerned with what’s going to happen to her 16-year-old son after he was forced to drop out of school due to lack of funds.

    “The union leaders come every time promising us houses and land and I would like to have them,” she said. “But they never happen as promised.”

    ___

    Francis reported from Colombo, Sri Lanka.

    ___

    Find more of AP’s Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

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  • The United Nations’ ambitious plan to vaccinate Gaza against polio

    The United Nations’ ambitious plan to vaccinate Gaza against polio

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    The United Nations health agency and partners are launching a campaign starting Sunday to vaccinate 640,000 Palestinian children in Gaza against polio, an ambitious effort amid a devastating war that has destroyed the territory’s health care system.Related video above: 6 Israeli hostages’ bodies recovered amid Blinken’s ceasefire effortsThe campaign comes after the first polio case was reported in Gaza in 25 years — a 10-month-old boy, now paralyzed in the leg. The World Health Organization says the presence of a paralysis case indicates there could be hundreds more who have been infected but aren’t showing symptoms.Most people who have polio do not experience symptoms and those who do usually recover in a week or so. But there is no cure, and when polio causes paralysis, it is usually permanent. If the paralysis affects breathing muscles, the disease can be fatal.The vaccination effort will not be easy: Gaza’s roads are largely destroyed, its hospitals badly damaged, and its population spread into isolated pockets.WHO said Thursday that it has reached an agreement with Israel for limited pauses in the fighting to allow for the vaccination campaign to take place. Even so, such a large-scale campaign will pose major difficulties in a territory blanketed in rubble, where 90% of Palestinians are displaced.How long will it take?The three-day vaccination campaign in central Gaza will begin Sunday, during a “humanitarian pause” lasting from 6 a.m. until 3 p.m., and another day can be added if needed, said Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, WHO’s representative in the Palestinian territories.In coordination with Israeli authorities, the effort will then move to southern Gaza and northern Gaza during similar pauses, he said during a news conference by video from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.Who will receive the vaccine?The vaccination campaign targets 640,000 children under 10, according to WHO. Each child will receive two drops of oral polio vaccine in two rounds, the second to be administered four weeks after the first.Where are the vaccination sites?The vaccination sites span Gaza, both inside and outside Israeli evacuation zones, from Rafah in the south to the northern reaches of the territory.The Ramallah-based Health Ministry said Friday that there would be over 400 “fixed” vaccination sites — the most in Khan Younis, where the population density is the highest and there are 239,300 children under 10. Fixed sites include health care centers, hospitals, clinics and field hospitals.Elsewhere in the territory, there will also be around 230 “outreach” sites — community gathering points that are not traditional medical centers — where vaccines will be distributed.Where are the vaccines now?Around 1.3 million doses of the vaccine traveled through the Kerem Shalom checkpoint and are currently being held in “cold-chain storage” in a warehouse in Deir al-Balah. That means the warehouse is able to maintain the correct temperature so the vaccines do not lose their potency.Another shipment of 400,000 doses is set to be delivered to Gaza soon.The vaccines will be trucked to distribution sites by a team of over 2,000 medical volunteers, said Ammar Ammar, a spokesperson for UNICEF.What challenges lie ahead?Mounting any sort of campaign that requires traversing the Gaza Strip and interacting with its medical system is bound to pose difficulties.The U.N. estimates that approximately 65% of the total road network in Gaza has been damaged. Nineteen of the strip’s 36 hospitals are out of service.The north of the territory is cut off from the south, and travel between the two areas has been challenging throughout the war because of Israeli military operations. Aid groups have had to suspend trips due to security concerns, after convoys were targeted by the Israeli military.Peeperkorn said Friday that WHO cannot do house-to-house vaccinations in Gaza, as they have in other polio campaigns. When asked about the viability of the effort, Peeperkorn said WHO thinks “it is feasible if all the pieces of the puzzle are in place. “How many doses do children need and what happens if they miss a dose?The World Health Organization says children typically need about three to four doses of oral polio vaccine — two drops per dose — to be protected against polio. If they don’t receive all of the doses, they are vulnerable to infection.Doctors have previously found that children who are malnourished or who have other illnesses might need more than 10 doses of the oral polio vaccine to be fully protected.Are there side effects?Yes, but they are very rare.Billions of doses of the oral vaccine have been given to children worldwide, and it is safe and effective. But in about 1 in 2.7 million doses, the live virus in the vaccine can paralyze the child who receives the drops.How did this outbreak in Gaza start?The polio virus that triggered this latest outbreak is a mutated virus from an oral polio vaccine. The oral polio vaccine contains weakened live virus, and in very rare cases, that virus is shed by those who are vaccinated and can evolve into a new form capable of starting new epidemics.___Associated Press reporters Samy Magdy in Cairo and Maria Cheng in London contributed.

    JERUSALEM (AP) —

    The United Nations health agency and partners are launching a campaign starting Sunday to vaccinate 640,000 Palestinian children in Gaza against polio, an ambitious effort amid a devastating war that has destroyed the territory’s health care system.

    Related video above: 6 Israeli hostages’ bodies recovered amid Blinken’s ceasefire efforts

    The campaign comes after the first polio case was reported in Gaza in 25 years — a 10-month-old boy, now paralyzed in the leg. The World Health Organization says the presence of a paralysis case indicates there could be hundreds more who have been infected but aren’t showing symptoms.

    Most people who have polio do not experience symptoms and those who do usually recover in a week or so. But there is no cure, and when polio causes paralysis, it is usually permanent. If the paralysis affects breathing muscles, the disease can be fatal.

    The vaccination effort will not be easy: Gaza’s roads are largely destroyed, its hospitals badly damaged, and its population spread into isolated pockets.

    WHO said Thursday that it has reached an agreement with Israel for limited pauses in the fighting to allow for the vaccination campaign to take place. Even so, such a large-scale campaign will pose major difficulties in a territory blanketed in rubble, where 90% of Palestinians are displaced.

    How long will it take?

    The three-day vaccination campaign in central Gaza will begin Sunday, during a “humanitarian pause” lasting from 6 a.m. until 3 p.m., and another day can be added if needed, said Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, WHO’s representative in the Palestinian territories.

    In coordination with Israeli authorities, the effort will then move to southern Gaza and northern Gaza during similar pauses, he said during a news conference by video from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

    Who will receive the vaccine?

    The vaccination campaign targets 640,000 children under 10, according to WHO. Each child will receive two drops of oral polio vaccine in two rounds, the second to be administered four weeks after the first.

    Where are the vaccination sites?

    The vaccination sites span Gaza, both inside and outside Israeli evacuation zones, from Rafah in the south to the northern reaches of the territory.

    The Ramallah-based Health Ministry said Friday that there would be over 400 “fixed” vaccination sites — the most in Khan Younis, where the population density is the highest and there are 239,300 children under 10. Fixed sites include health care centers, hospitals, clinics and field hospitals.

    Elsewhere in the territory, there will also be around 230 “outreach” sites — community gathering points that are not traditional medical centers — where vaccines will be distributed.

    Where are the vaccines now?

    Around 1.3 million doses of the vaccine traveled through the Kerem Shalom checkpoint and are currently being held in “cold-chain storage” in a warehouse in Deir al-Balah. That means the warehouse is able to maintain the correct temperature so the vaccines do not lose their potency.

    Another shipment of 400,000 doses is set to be delivered to Gaza soon.

    The vaccines will be trucked to distribution sites by a team of over 2,000 medical volunteers, said Ammar Ammar, a spokesperson for UNICEF.

    What challenges lie ahead?

    Mounting any sort of campaign that requires traversing the Gaza Strip and interacting with its medical system is bound to pose difficulties.

    The U.N. estimates that approximately 65% of the total road network in Gaza has been damaged. Nineteen of the strip’s 36 hospitals are out of service.

    The north of the territory is cut off from the south, and travel between the two areas has been challenging throughout the war because of Israeli military operations. Aid groups have had to suspend trips due to security concerns, after convoys were targeted by the Israeli military.

    Peeperkorn said Friday that WHO cannot do house-to-house vaccinations in Gaza, as they have in other polio campaigns. When asked about the viability of the effort, Peeperkorn said WHO thinks “it is feasible if all the pieces of the puzzle are in place. “

    How many doses do children need and what happens if they miss a dose?

    The World Health Organization says children typically need about three to four doses of oral polio vaccine — two drops per dose — to be protected against polio. If they don’t receive all of the doses, they are vulnerable to infection.

    Doctors have previously found that children who are malnourished or who have other illnesses might need more than 10 doses of the oral polio vaccine to be fully protected.

    Are there side effects?

    Yes, but they are very rare.

    Billions of doses of the oral vaccine have been given to children worldwide, and it is safe and effective. But in about 1 in 2.7 million doses, the live virus in the vaccine can paralyze the child who receives the drops.

    How did this outbreak in Gaza start?

    The polio virus that triggered this latest outbreak is a mutated virus from an oral polio vaccine. The oral polio vaccine contains weakened live virus, and in very rare cases, that virus is shed by those who are vaccinated and can evolve into a new form capable of starting new epidemics.

    ___

    Associated Press reporters Samy Magdy in Cairo and Maria Cheng in London contributed.


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  • Iran claims Yemen’s Houthi rebels will allow rescuers to salvage oil tanker ablaze in Red Sea

    Iran claims Yemen’s Houthi rebels will allow rescuers to salvage oil tanker ablaze in Red Sea

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    UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Yemen’s Houthi rebels have agreed to allow tugboats and rescue ships to assist a Greek-flagged oil tanker that remains ablaze in the Red Sea “in consideration of humanitarian and environmental concerns,” Iran’s mission to the United Nations claimed late Wednesday. However, the Houthis did not offer specific details and are believed to have blocked an earlier attempt to salvage the vessel and continue to attack shipping across the Red Sea.

    Last week’s attack on the Sounion marked the most serious assault in weeks by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who continue to target shipping through the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. The attacks have disrupted the $1 trillion in trade that typically passes through the region, as well as halted some aid shipments to conflict-ravaged Sudan and Yemen.

    Iran’s U.N. mission said Wednesday that following the fire on the Sounion “and the subsequent environmental hazards,” several countries it didn’t identify reached out to the Houthis “requesting a temporary truce for the entry of tugboats and rescue ships into the incident area.”

    “Ansar Allah has consented to this,” the Iranian mission said, using another name for the Houthis. It offered no further details, nor did the Houthis, who have repeatedly attacked ships in the Red Sea, detained aid workers, deployed child soldiers and cracked down on dissent since holding Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in 2014.

    Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul-Salam, in comments carried by the Houthi-controlled SABA news agency, said late Wednesday that the attack showed how serious the rebels took their campaign against shipping.

    “After several international parties contacted us, especially the European ones, they were allowed to tow the burning oil ship Sounion,” Abdul-Salam said, without giving further details.

    The Pentagon said Tuesday that attempts by an unidentified “third party” to send two tugboats to the stricken Sounion were blocked by the Houthis. Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters that the Houthis’ actions demonstrate “their blatant disregard for not only human life, but also for the potential environmental catastrophe that this presents.”

    Ryder said the Sounion appears to be leaking oil into the Red Sea, home to coral reefs and other natural habitats and wildlife. However, the European Union’s Operation Aspides, whose mission is to protect shipping in the area, said as recently as Wednesday the ship was not leaking oil.

    The Houthis in their campaign have seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign that also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a U.S.-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets.

    The rebels maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the U.S. or the U.K. to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.

    In the case of the Sounion, the Houthis have claimed the Greek company operating the vessel had other ships serving Israel. The Joint Maritime Information Center, a multinational organization overseen by the U.S. Navy, assessed that the Sounion “has no direct association with Israel, U.S. or U.K. within the company business structure” though other ships had “visited Israel in the recent past.”

    ——

    Weissenstein reported from New York

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  • Aid groups in Gaza aim to avert a polio outbreak with vaccinations

    Aid groups in Gaza aim to avert a polio outbreak with vaccinations

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    The threat of polio is rising fast in the Gaza Strip, prompting aid groups to call for an urgent pause in the war so they can ramp up vaccinations and head off a full-blown outbreak. One case has been confirmed, others are suspected, and the virus was detected in wastewater in six different locations in July.Related video above: A Gazan father went to register his twins’ births. They were killed in an Israeli airstrike, hospital officials sayPolio was eradicated in Gaza 25 years ago, but vaccinations plunged after the war began 10 months ago, and the territory has become a breeding ground for the virus, aid groups say. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are crowded into tent camps lacking clean water or proper disposal of sewage and garbage.To avert a widespread outbreak, aid groups are preparing to vaccinate more than 600,000 children in the coming weeks. They say the ambitious vaccination plans are impossible, though, without a pause in the fighting between Israel and Hamas.A possible cease-fire deal couldn’t come soon enough.”We are anticipating and preparing for the worst-case scenario of a polio outbreak in the coming weeks or month,” Francis Hughes, the Gaza Response Director at CARE International, told The Associated Press.The World Health Organization and UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency, said in a joint statement Friday that, at a minimum, a seven-day pause is needed to carry out a mass vaccination plan.The U.N. aims to bring 1.6 million doses of polio vaccine into Gaza, where sanitation and water systems have been destroyed, leaving open pits of human waste in crowded tent camps. Families living in the camps have little clean water or even soap to maintain hygiene and sometimes use wastewater to drink or clean clothes and dishes.At least 225 informal waste disposal sites and landfills have cropped up around Gaza — many close to where families are sheltering, according to a report released in July by PAX, a Netherlands-based nonprofit that used satellite imagery to track the sites.Polio, which is highly contagious and transmits mainly through contact with contaminated feces, water or food, can cause difficulty breathing and irreversible paralysis, usually in the legs. It strikes young children in particular and is sometimes fatal.The aid group Mercy Corps estimates some 50,000 babies born since the war began have not been immunized against polio.WHO and UNICEF said Friday that three children are suspected of being infected and that their stool samples were being tested by a laboratory in Jordan. The Ministry of Health in Ramallah in the West Bank said late Friday that tests conducted in Jordan confirmed one case in a 10-month-old child in Gaza.”This is very concerning,” UNICEF spokesperson Ammar Ammar said Saturday. “It is impossible to carry out the vaccination in an active war zone, and the alternative would be unconscionable for the children in Gaza and the whole region.”Aid workers anticipate the number of suspected cases will rise and worry that the disease could be hard to contain without urgent intervention.”We are not optimistic because we know that doctors could also be missing the warning signs,” said Hughes of CARE International.Health workers in Gaza are gearing up for a mass vaccination campaign to begin at the end of August and continue into September. The goal is to immunize 640,000 children under the age of 10 over two rounds of vaccinations, according to WHO.The Israeli military body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, which goes by the acronym COGAT, said it is “preparing to support a comprehensive vaccination campaign.” And Hamas said in a statement Friday that it would support a seven-day truce to facilitate the vaccinations. Cease-fire talks resume in Cairo next week.The alarm over polio was first raised when the WHO announced in July that sewage samples collected from six locations in Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah, in the south and center of Gaza, tested positive for a variant of the virus used in vaccines. The weakened form of the virus used in vaccines can mutate into a stronger version and cause an outbreak in areas that lack proper immunization, according to WHO.The only countries where polio is endemic are Afghanistan and Pakistan. But outbreaks of the vaccine-derived virus have occurred in war-torn Ukraine and Yemen, where conditions aren’t nearly as bad as they are in Gaza.Part of the challenge in Gaza, where polio hasn’t been seen in a quarter-century, is to raise awareness so that health workers recognize symptoms, the U.N. says. The territory’s health care system has been devasted by the war, where workers are overwhelmed treating the wounded and patients sick with diarrhea and other ailments.Before the war, 99% of Gaza’s population was vaccinated against polio. That figure is now 86%, according to WHO. The goal is to get polio immunization levels in Gaza back above 95%.While more than 440,000 doses of polio vaccine were brought into Gaza in December, that supply has diminished to just over 86,000, according to Hamid Jafari, director of polio eradication for the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region.The 1.6 million oral doses being brought into Gaza will be a more advanced version of the vaccine that is less prone to mutating into an outbreak, the WHO said.Getting the vaccine into Gaza is just the first step.U.N. workers face difficulties retrieving medical supplies and other aid because of Israel’s military assaults, fighting between troops and Hamas, and increasing lawlessness that has led to the looting of convoys.Also, vaccines must be kept refrigerated, which has become difficult in Gaza, where electricity is scarce. About 15-20 refrigerated trucks serve all of Gaza, and they also must be used to transport food and other medical supplies, said a senior Israeli army official with COGAT who was not authorized to talk with media and spoke on condition of anonymity.Palestinians also face difficulties getting around. Their inability to reach health facilities will be an additional obstacle to the vaccination campaign, said Sameer Sah of Medical Aid for Palestinians.”There’s no transport system. The roads have been destroyed, and you have quadcopters shooting at people,” said Sah, referring to Israeli drones that often carry out strikes. Israel says its strikes target Hamas militants.WHO said a pause in the fighting is vital to enabling “children and families to safely reach health facilities and community outreach workers to get to children who cannot access health facilities.”Only about a third of Gaza’s 36 hospitals and 40% of its primary health care facilities are functioning, according to the U.N. But the WHO and UNICEF say their vaccination campaign will be carried out in every municipality in Gaza, with help from 2,700 workers.___Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.

    CAIRO (AP) —

    The threat of polio is rising fast in the Gaza Strip, prompting aid groups to call for an urgent pause in the war so they can ramp up vaccinations and head off a full-blown outbreak. One case has been confirmed, others are suspected, and the virus was detected in wastewater in six different locations in July.

    Related video above: A Gazan father went to register his twins’ births. They were killed in an Israeli airstrike, hospital officials say

    Polio was eradicated in Gaza 25 years ago, but vaccinations plunged after the war began 10 months ago, and the territory has become a breeding ground for the virus, aid groups say. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are crowded into tent camps lacking clean water or proper disposal of sewage and garbage.

    To avert a widespread outbreak, aid groups are preparing to vaccinate more than 600,000 children in the coming weeks. They say the ambitious vaccination plans are impossible, though, without a pause in the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

    A possible cease-fire deal couldn’t come soon enough.

    “We are anticipating and preparing for the worst-case scenario of a polio outbreak in the coming weeks or month,” Francis Hughes, the Gaza Response Director at CARE International, told The Associated Press.

    The World Health Organization and UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency, said in a joint statement Friday that, at a minimum, a seven-day pause is needed to carry out a mass vaccination plan.

    The U.N. aims to bring 1.6 million doses of polio vaccine into Gaza, where sanitation and water systems have been destroyed, leaving open pits of human waste in crowded tent camps. Families living in the camps have little clean water or even soap to maintain hygiene and sometimes use wastewater to drink or clean clothes and dishes.

    At least 225 informal waste disposal sites and landfills have cropped up around Gaza — many close to where families are sheltering, according to a report released in July by PAX, a Netherlands-based nonprofit that used satellite imagery to track the sites.

    Polio, which is highly contagious and transmits mainly through contact with contaminated feces, water or food, can cause difficulty breathing and irreversible paralysis, usually in the legs. It strikes young children in particular and is sometimes fatal.

    The aid group Mercy Corps estimates some 50,000 babies born since the war began have not been immunized against polio.

    WHO and UNICEF said Friday that three children are suspected of being infected and that their stool samples were being tested by a laboratory in Jordan. The Ministry of Health in Ramallah in the West Bank said late Friday that tests conducted in Jordan confirmed one case in a 10-month-old child in Gaza.

    “This is very concerning,” UNICEF spokesperson Ammar Ammar said Saturday. “It is impossible to carry out the vaccination in an active war zone, and the alternative would be unconscionable for the children in Gaza and the whole region.”

    Aid workers anticipate the number of suspected cases will rise and worry that the disease could be hard to contain without urgent intervention.

    “We are not optimistic because we know that doctors could also be missing the warning signs,” said Hughes of CARE International.

    Health workers in Gaza are gearing up for a mass vaccination campaign to begin at the end of August and continue into September. The goal is to immunize 640,000 children under the age of 10 over two rounds of vaccinations, according to WHO.

    The Israeli military body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, which goes by the acronym COGAT, said it is “preparing to support a comprehensive vaccination campaign.” And Hamas said in a statement Friday that it would support a seven-day truce to facilitate the vaccinations. Cease-fire talks resume in Cairo next week.

    The alarm over polio was first raised when the WHO announced in July that sewage samples collected from six locations in Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah, in the south and center of Gaza, tested positive for a variant of the virus used in vaccines. The weakened form of the virus used in vaccines can mutate into a stronger version and cause an outbreak in areas that lack proper immunization, according to WHO.

    The only countries where polio is endemic are Afghanistan and Pakistan. But outbreaks of the vaccine-derived virus have occurred in war-torn Ukraine and Yemen, where conditions aren’t nearly as bad as they are in Gaza.

    Part of the challenge in Gaza, where polio hasn’t been seen in a quarter-century, is to raise awareness so that health workers recognize symptoms, the U.N. says. The territory’s health care system has been devasted by the war, where workers are overwhelmed treating the wounded and patients sick with diarrhea and other ailments.

    Before the war, 99% of Gaza’s population was vaccinated against polio. That figure is now 86%, according to WHO. The goal is to get polio immunization levels in Gaza back above 95%.

    While more than 440,000 doses of polio vaccine were brought into Gaza in December, that supply has diminished to just over 86,000, according to Hamid Jafari, director of polio eradication for the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region.

    The 1.6 million oral doses being brought into Gaza will be a more advanced version of the vaccine that is less prone to mutating into an outbreak, the WHO said.

    Getting the vaccine into Gaza is just the first step.

    U.N. workers face difficulties retrieving medical supplies and other aid because of Israel’s military assaults, fighting between troops and Hamas, and increasing lawlessness that has led to the looting of convoys.

    Also, vaccines must be kept refrigerated, which has become difficult in Gaza, where electricity is scarce. About 15-20 refrigerated trucks serve all of Gaza, and they also must be used to transport food and other medical supplies, said a senior Israeli army official with COGAT who was not authorized to talk with media and spoke on condition of anonymity.

    Palestinians also face difficulties getting around. Their inability to reach health facilities will be an additional obstacle to the vaccination campaign, said Sameer Sah of Medical Aid for Palestinians.

    “There’s no transport system. The roads have been destroyed, and you have quadcopters shooting at people,” said Sah, referring to Israeli drones that often carry out strikes. Israel says its strikes target Hamas militants.

    WHO said a pause in the fighting is vital to enabling “children and families to safely reach health facilities and community outreach workers to get to children who cannot access health facilities.”

    Only about a third of Gaza’s 36 hospitals and 40% of its primary health care facilities are functioning, according to the U.N. But the WHO and UNICEF say their vaccination campaign will be carried out in every municipality in Gaza, with help from 2,700 workers.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.

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  • UN Rejects Stonehenge as ‘Site in Danger,’ Outraging Conservationists

    UN Rejects Stonehenge as ‘Site in Danger,’ Outraging Conservationists

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    A Stonehenge conservation group is furious over a UNESCO decision that would keep the UN organization from listing the site as endangered, ostensibly allowing a planned highway expansion.

    British planners say the roadwork, which includes not just expanded highway lanes but a tunnel that would run under a portion of the Stonehenge site, would improve traffic flow and also eliminate the sight and sound of traffic from the ruins. Critics allege the plan was concocted with improper public consultation and poses a threat to the site’s geology, which could in turn damage the remains. There’s also undiscovered archaeology to consider.

    On Wednesday, a UNESCO committee voted against adding Stonehenge to the organization’s List of World Heritage in Danger. If the effort to add Stonehenge to the list had succeeded, it could have forced the British government to revamp or abandon the highway plans. 

    The List of World Heritage in Danger is meant to raise international awareness of threats to some of the planet’s oldest and most cultural, historical, or scientifically significant sites. UNESCO also allocates financial assistance to preserve locations on the list. 

    “This is a dark day for Stonehenge and a hollow victory for the UK government as this decision won’t stop the harm to the World Heritage Site,” said Stonehenge Alliance chair Johns Adam in a press release. “We should not forget that this scheme failed the planning test. It was recommended for refusal because of the ‘permanent and irreversible’ harm it would do.”

    The plan had been approved by the country’s Conservative Party, which was ousted in an election on July 4. Adams said it’s his hope that the new Labor government will abandon the highway plan.

    “This is a travesty of justice,” said Stonehenge Alliance president Tom Holland. “The weakness of the Government’s case can be measured by the grotesque lengths they have gone to in their attempts to cover it up. If Labour ministers are complicit in this, then it disgraces them.”

    UK ambassador to UNESCO Anna Nsubuga praised the committee’s vote, saying the planned tunnel does not justify adding Stonehenge, which was made a World Heritage site in 1986, to the danger list. 

    “The UK looks forward to continuing our work on the proposed Scheme, which would reconnect the Site, restore peace and tranquility, and give the stones and landscape the respect and setting they deserve,” she wrote on X. 

    Stonehenge (a magic place, where the moon doth rise with a dragon’s face) has undergone several restorations and repairs. Most recently, in 2021, the rocks resting atop the support stones were coated with anti-weathering cement mortar, which also helps to secure them in place.

    The original purpose of Stonehenge, which dates back to 3700 BC, is still not entirely settled, though one theory that’s gained traction in recent years posits that it served as a memorial site. Others have wondered whether it was a religious temple or a timekeeping device.

    More: Ancient Britons Traveled Hundreds of Miles to Attend Pork Fests at Stonehenge

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    Adam Kovac

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  • Biden, Trump, and RFK Jr. are all anti-freedom

    Biden, Trump, and RFK Jr. are all anti-freedom

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    Last week, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked me to moderate what he called “The Real Debate.”

    Kennedy was angry with CNN because it wouldn’t let him join its Trump-Biden debate.

    His people persuaded Elon Musk to carry his Real Debate on X, formerly Twitter. They asked me to give RFK Jr. the same questions, with the same time limits.

    I agreed, hoping to hear some good new ideas.

    I didn’t.

    As you know, President Joe Biden slept, and former President Donald Trump lied. Well, OK, Biden lied at least nine times, too, even by CNN’s count.

    Kennedy was better.

    But not much.

    He did acknowledge that our government’s deficit spending binge is horrible. He said he’d cut military spending. He criticized unscientific COVID-19 lockdowns and said nice words about school choice.

    But he, too, dodged questions, blathered on past time limits, and pushed big government nonsense like, “Every million dollars we spend on child care creates 22 jobs.”

    Give me a break.

    Independence Day is this week.

    As presidential candidates promise to subsidize flying cars (Trump), free community college tuition (Biden), and “affordable” housing via 3 percent government-backed bonds (Kennedy), I think about how bewildered and horrified the Founding Fathers would be by such promises.

    On the Fourth of July almost 250 years ago, they signed the Declaration of Independence, marking the birth of our nation.

    They did not want life dominated by politicians. They wanted a society made up of free individuals. They believed every human being has “unalienable rights” to life, liberty, and (justly acquired) property.

    The blueprints created by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution gradually created the freest and most prosperous nation in the history of the world.

    Before 1776, people thought there was a “divine right” of kings and nobles to rule over them.

    America succeeded because the Founders rejected that belief.

    In the Virginia Declaration of Rights, George Mason wrote, “All power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people.”

    By contrast, Kennedy and Biden make promises that resemble the United Nations’ “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” U.N. bureaucrats say every person deserves “holidays with pay…clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.”

    The Founders made it clear that governments should be limited. They didn’t think we had a claim on our neighbor’s money. We shouldn’t try to force them to pay for our food, clothing, housing, prescription drugs, college tuition.

    They believe you have the right to be left alone to pursue happiness as you see fit.

    For a while, the U.S. government stayed modest. Politicians mostly let citizens decide our own paths, choose where to live, what jobs to take, and what to say.

    There were a small number of “public servants.” But they weren’t our bosses.

    Patrick Henry declared: “The governing persons are the servants of the people.”

    Yet now there are 23 million government employees. Some think they are in charge of everything.

    Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.), pushing her Green New Deal, declared herself “the boss.”

    The Biden administration wants to decide what kind of car you should drive.

    During the pandemic, politicians ordered people to stay home, schools to shut down and businesses to close.

    Then, as often happens in “Big Government World,” people harmed by government edicts ask politicians to compensate them.

    After governments banned Fourth of July fireworks, the American Pyrotechnics Association requested “relief in the next Senate Covid package to address the unique and specific costs to this industry,” reported The New York Times. “The industry hopes Congress will earmark $175 million for it in another stimulus bill.”

    Today the politically connected routinely lobby passionately to get bigger chunks of your money.

    For some of you, the last straw was when the administration demanded you inject a chemical into your body.

    When some resisted vaccinations, Biden warned, “Our patience is wearing thin.”

    His patience? Who does he think he is? My father? My king?

    At least Kennedy doesn’t say things like that. But he does say absurd things. In a few weeks I’ll release my sit-down interview with him, and you can decide for yourself whether he’s a good candidate.

    This Fourth of July, remember Milton Friedman’s question: “How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect?”

    COPYRIGHT 2024 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

    The post Biden, Trump, and RFK Jr. Are All Anti-Freedom appeared first on Reason.com.

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    John Stossel

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  • U.S. humanitarian aid pier in Gaza under scrutiny

    U.S. humanitarian aid pier in Gaza under scrutiny

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    U.S. humanitarian aid pier in Gaza under scrutiny – CBS News


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    Senior U.N. officials have told Israel they’ll suspend aid operations across Gaza unless urgent steps are taken to better protect humanitarian workers, according to the Associated Press. A floating pier built by the U.S. military to get much-needed humanitarian aid into Gaza has spent more time being fixed than it has delivering food. Imtiaz Tyab got an up-close look.

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  • Art Exhibition Featuring China’s Jiangsu Province Unveiled at UN New York Headquarters

    Art Exhibition Featuring China’s Jiangsu Province Unveiled at UN New York Headquarters

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    This art exhibition poetically explores Jiangsu’s culture and constructs a bridge for dialogue between Jiangsu and the world.


    NEW YORK, June 25, 2024 (Newswire.com)
    –
    An art exhibition “Dialogue Between Jiangsu and the World, Sharing a Better Life” was unveiled on June 24 at United Nations Headquarters in New York. The two-week exhibition, co-hosted by Jiangsu Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism and the Provincial Foreign Affairs Office, will invite the global community to discover Jiangsu’s wonders and experience the essence of China through the captivating lens of the photographs.

    Embraced by water and steeped in culture, Jiangsu Province in Eastern China stands as a vibrant tapestry, a leader in China’s economy, boasting rich cultural heritage and stunning natural beauty. Water and culture have interwoven, shaping the essence of “Charm of Jiangsu” and creating a breathtaking picture of human life in harmony with nature.

    “This art exhibition stands as a tangible initiative to foster Sino-American exchange and cooperation through the medium of tourism,” said Fred Teng, President of the America China Public Affairs Institute at an opening ceremony of the exhibition last Friday, adding that “Should one have the opportunity to visit only a single province in China, Jiangsu should be the unequivocal choice.”

    Elizabeth Chin, Executive Director of the New York chapter of the Pacific Asia Travel Association, underscored the heartfelt camaraderie between Jiangsu Province and New York State. She encouraged a greater number of Americans to embark on a journey to Jiangsu, exploring singular cultural heritage sites such as the Suzhou Gardens, Yixing clay teapots, and the Nanjing City Wall.

    “We have selected over 20 outstanding works from both Chinese and international photographers to showcase Jiangsu’s natural scenery, cultural charm, and human spirit from multiple perspectives. Through these works of art, we aim to help more people understand Jiangsu and perceive China,” said Li Chuan, Deputy Director of Jiangsu Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, in a video message to attendees.

    “Culture and tourism play a crucial role in promoting exchanges and mutual learning among different civilizations worldwide. We are vigorously optimizing services for inbound tourism, enhancing convenience in foreign currency exchange, consumer payments, and venue reservations. We look forward to welcoming you to Jiangsu to experience the beauty of the scenery, flavor, humanity and life, and to make even more beautiful discoveries,” said Li. 

    This year also marks the 35th anniversary of the sister-state relationship between Jiangsu Province and New York State. Since the inception of this relationship, both regions have conducted extensive and profound exchanges and collaborations in trade, education, culture, tourism, and other domains. This art exhibition poetically explores Jiangsu’s culture and constructs a bridge for dialogue between Jiangsu and the world. 

    “Dialogue Between Jiangsu and the World: Sharing a Better Life” art exhibition will continue until July 5. At the opening ceremony, special presentations on Jiangsu’s culture and tourism, as well as recommendations for inbound travel routes to Jiangsu, were also held. 

    Source: Jiangsu Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism

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  • 6/23/2024: The Capital of Free Russia; Our Mistake is Your Responsibility; Law of the Sea

    6/23/2024: The Capital of Free Russia; Our Mistake is Your Responsibility; Law of the Sea

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    6/23/2024: The Capital of Free Russia; Our Mistake is Your Responsibility; Law of the Sea – CBS News


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    First, Putin’s courageous Russian critics speak out. Then, a look at what happens when Social Security mistakenly overpays. And, U.S. fails to ratify treaty for ocean mining.

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  • U.S. fails to ratify ocean mining treaty; other countries rush toward underwater riches

    U.S. fails to ratify ocean mining treaty; other countries rush toward underwater riches

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    U.S. fails to ratify ocean mining treaty; other countries rush toward underwater riches – CBS News


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    Countries that ratified the U.N.’s Law of the Sea treaty are diving into plans for deep sea mining, but Republican holdouts in the U.S. torpedoed U.S. efforts to join in.

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  • Number of children killed in global conflicts tripled in 2023, U.N. human rights chief says

    Number of children killed in global conflicts tripled in 2023, U.N. human rights chief says

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    Global conflicts killed three times as many children and twice as many women in 2023 than in the previous year, as overall civilian fatalities swelled 72%, the United Nations said Tuesday. 

    Warring parties were increasingly “pushing beyond boundaries of what is acceptable — and legal,” U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

    They are showing “utter contempt for the other, trampling human rights at their core,” he said. “Killings and injuries of civilians have become a daily occurrence. Destruction of vital infrastructure a daily occurrence.”

    “Children shot at. Hospitals bombed. Heavy artillery launched on entire communities. All along with hateful, divisive, and dehumanising rhetoric.”

    livesay-gaza-family-israel-hostage-raid.jpg
    Doctors treat 16-year-old Palestinian Moamen Mattar at a hospital in central Gaza for a gunshot wound his family says he sustained during Israel’s June 8, 2024 operation to rescue four hostages.

    CBS News


    The U.N. rights chief said his office had gathered data indicating that last year, “the number of civilian deaths in armed conflict soared by 72%.”

    “Horrifyingly, the data indicates that the proportion of women killed in 2023 doubled and that of children tripled, compared to the year prior,” he said.

    In the Gaza Strip, Turk said he was “appalled by the disregard for international human rights and humanitarian law by parties to the conflict” and “unconscionable death and suffering.”

    Since the war erupted after Hamas’s unprecedented Oct. 7 attack on Israel, he said “more than 120,000 people in Gaza, overwhelmingly women and children, have been killed or injured… as a result of the intensive Israeli offensives.”

    “Since Israel escalated its operations into Rafah in early May, almost one million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced yet again, while aid delivery and humanitarian access deteriorated further,” he said.


    Israel continues Rafah offensive as fate of cease-fire deal uncertain

    01:38

    Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said Tuesday that Israel’s military offensive on the besieged enclave had killed more than 37,372 Palestinians and wounded 85,452 since the war started. The ministry does not distinguish between civilian and combatant casualties.

    Need for aid increasing, but funding is not 

    Turk also pointed to a range of other conflicts, including in Ukraine, the Democratic epublic of Congo and Syria.

    And in Sudan, in the grips of a more than year-long civil war, he warned the country “is being destroyed in front of our eyes by two warring parties and affiliated groups … (who have) flagrantly cast aside the rights of their own people.”

    Such devastation comes as funding to help the growing numbers of people in need is dwindling.


    Millions facing starvation in Sudan nearly a year after civil war broke out, U.N. says

    03:42

    “As of the end of May 2024, the gap between humanitarian funding requirements and available resources stands at $40.8 billion,” Turk said. “Appeals are funded at an average of 16.1% only,” he said.

    “Contrast this with the almost $2.5 trillion in global military expenditure in 2023, a 6.8% increase in real terms from 2022,” Turk said, stressing that “this was the steepest year-on-year increase since 2009.”

    “In addition to inflicting unbearable human suffering, war comes with a hefty price tag,” he said.

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  • 5/28: The Daily Report with John Dickerson

    5/28: The Daily Report with John Dickerson

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    5/28: The Daily Report with John Dickerson – CBS News


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    John Dickerson reports on the fallout from Israeli airstrikes on Rafah, closing arguments in former President Trump’s “hush money” trial, and what could be behind increased reports of airline turbulence.

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  • Satellite imagery shows Palestinians fleeing Rafah’s tent cities as threat of major attack looms

    Satellite imagery shows Palestinians fleeing Rafah’s tent cities as threat of major attack looms

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    (CNN) — Palestinians have begun to flee Rafah’s tent cities in large numbers over the past 72 hours, as the threat of a potential major Israeli assault looms, new satellite imagery from Planet Labs shows.

    CNN has identified several camps sheltering Gaza’s vast refugee population – including the main camp in central Rafah that housed thousands of tents – which have significantly decreased in size between Tuesday and Wednesday. Although some camps in Rafah did see a decrease in population earlier in the week, the majority of camps identified by CNN saw their greatest declines since Tuesday.

    Some of the tent camps had been in United Nations schools, others in open fields, or along roadways for months. Now, a significant number have vanished, but many remain in the camps despite IDF orders to leave.

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    Paul P. Murphy and CNN

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  • The Case for Investing in Responsible A.I.

    The Case for Investing in Responsible A.I.

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    Ford Foundation and Omidyar Network recognize Anthropic’s groundbreaking generative language A.I.—which incorporates and prioritizes humanity—as an alignment with their missions to make investments that generate positive financial returns while benefiting society at large. Unsplash+

    Artificial intelligence (A.I.) is having a very real impact on our politics, our workforce and our world. Chatbots and other large language models, text-to-image programs and video generators are changing how we learn, challenging who we trust and intensifying debates over intellectual property and content ownership. Generative A.I. has the potential to supercharge solutions to some of society’s most pressing problems, from previously incurable diseases to our global climate crisis and more. But without clear intent and proper guardrails, A.I. has the capacity to do great harm. Rampant bias and disinformation threaten democracy; Big Tech’s dominance, if further consolidated, has the potential to crush innovation. Workers are rapidly displaced when they don’t have a voice in how technology is used on the job.  

    As philanthropic leaders who manage both our grants and our capital for social good, we invest in generative A.I. that protects, promotes and prioritizes public interest and the long-term benefit of humanity. With partners at the Nathan Cummings Foundation, we recently acquired shares in Anthropic, a leading generative A.I. company founded by two former Open A.I. executives. Other investors of the company—which is recognized for its commitment to transparency, accountability and safety—include Amazon (AMZN) ($4 billion) and Google (GOOGL) ($2 billion). 

    We understand both the promise and the peril of A.I. The funds we steward are themselves the product of profound technological transformation: the revolutionary horseless carriage at the beginning of the last century and an e-commerce platform made possible by the fledgling internet at the end. Innovation is coded in our DNA, and we feel a profound responsibility to do all we can to steer the next paradigm-shifting technology toward its highest ideals and away from its worst impulses. 

    Every harbinger of progress carries with it new risks—a Pandora’s box of intended and unintended consequences. Indeed, as French philosopher Paul Virilio famously observed, “The invention of the ship was also the invention of the shipwreck.” Today’s leaders would do well to heed Tim Cook’s charge to graduates in his 2019 Stanford commencement speech: “If you want credit for the good, take responsibility for the bad.”

    We are doing exactly this. At the Ford Foundation, we invest in organizations that help companies scale responsibly by developing frameworks for ethical technology innovation. We’re backing public-interest venture capital that funds companies like Reality Defender, which works to detect deep fakes before they become a larger problem. And we’re betting big on the emerging field of public interest technology. From organizations like the Algorithmic Justice League, which recently pressed the IRS to stop forcing taxpayers to use facial recognition software to log into their IRS accounts, ultimately leading to the end of that practice, to initiatives like the Disability and Tech Fund, which advances the leadership of people with disabilities in tech development, civil society is walking in lockstep with tech leaders to ensure that the public interest remains front and center. 

    Similarly, Omidyar Network aims to build a more inclusive infrastructure that explicitly addresses the social impact of generative A.I., elevating diversity in A.I. development and governance and promoting innovation and competition to democratize and maximize generative A.I.’s promise. It’s why, for example, Omidyar Network funds Humane Intelligence, an organization that works with companies to ensure their products are developed and deployed safely and ethically. 

    And now, Ford Foundation and Omidyar Network recognize Anthropic’s groundbreaking generative language A.I.—which incorporates and prioritizes humanity—an alignment with our own missions to make investments that generate positive financial returns while benefiting society at large. Anthropic is a Public Benefit Corporation with a charter and governance structure that mandates balancing social and financial interests, underscoring a responsibility to develop and maintain A.I. for human benefit. Founders Dario and Daniela Amodei started the company with trust and safety at its core, pioneering technology that guards against implicit bias.

    Their pioneering chatbot, “Claude” distinguishes itself from competitors with its adherence to “Constitutional A.I.,” Anthropic’s method of training a language model not just on human interaction but also on adherence to ethical rules and normative principles. For instance, Claude’s coding incorporates the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as a democratically designed set of rules based on public input.

    Today, we see a unique opportunity for our colleagues in business and philanthropy to lay an early stake in a rapidly evolving field, putting the public interest front and center. According to Bloomberg, the generative A.I. market is poised to become a $1.3 trillion industry over the next decade. Investors who recognize this growing field as an opportunity to do well must also prioritize the public good and consider the full range of stakeholders who are implicated in the advent of this technology. 

    Ultimately, everyone with an interest in preserving democracy, strengthening the economy, and securing a more just and equal future for all has a responsibility to ensure that this emerging technology helps, rather than harms, people, communities and society in the years and generations to come.

    The Case for Investing in Responsible A.I.

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    Roy Swan and Mike Kubzansky

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  • Genocide Fast Facts | CNN

    Genocide Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at genocide, the attempted or intentional destruction of a national, racial, religious or ethnic group, whether in wartime or peace.

    The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the United Nations after World War II.

    Article II of the Convention defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group:
    (a) Killing members of the group;
    (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
    (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
    (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
    (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

    1932-1933 – Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union inflict a famine upon Ukraine after people rebel against the imposed system of land management known as “collectivization,” which seizes privately owned farmlands and puts people to work in collectives. An estimated 25,000-33,000 people die every day. There are an estimated six million to 10 million deaths.

    December 1937-January 1938 – The Japanese Imperial Army marches into Nanking, China, and kills an estimated 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers. Tens of thousands are raped before they are murdered.

    1938-1945 – Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, deems the Jewish population racially inferior and a threat, and kills six million Jewish people in Germany, Poland, the Soviet Union and other areas around Europe during World War II.

    1944 – The term “genocide” is coined by lawyer Raphael Lemkin.

    December 9, 1948 – The United Nations adopts the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

    January 12, 1951 – The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide enters into force. It is eventually ratified by 142 nations.

    1975-1979 – Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot’s attempt to turn Cambodia into a Communist peasant farming society leads to the deaths of up to two million people from starvation, forced labor and executions.

    1988 – The Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein attacks civilians who have remained in “prohibited” areas. The attacks include the use of mustard gas and nerve agents and result in the death of an estimated 100,000 Iraqi Kurds.

    1992-1995 – Yugoslavia, led by President Slobodan Milosevic, attacks Bosnia after it declares its independence. Approximately 100,000 people – the majority of whom are Muslims, or Bosniaks, – are killed in the conflict. There are mass executions of “battle-age” men and mass rape of women.

    1995 – Ratko Mladic, former leader of the Bosnian Serb army, is indicted by the UN-established International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for war crimes and atrocities. In 2011, Mladic is arrested in Serbia. On November 22, 2017, Mladic is sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.

    1994 – In Rwanda, an estimated 800,000 civilians, mostly from the Tutsi ethnic group, are killed over a period of three months.

    July 17, 1998 – The Rome Statute, to establish a permanent international criminal court, is adopted.

    1998 – The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) establishes the precedent that rape during warfare is a crime of genocide. In Rwanda, HIV-infected men participated in the mass rape of Tutsi women.

    1998 – The first genocide conviction occurs at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Jean Paul Akayesu, the Hutu mayor of the town, Taba, is convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity.

    July 1, 2002 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) opens at The Hague, Netherlands, as the first permanent war crimes tribunal, with jurisdiction to try perpetrators of genocide. Previously, the UN Security Council created ad hoc tribunals to try those responsible for genocide in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.

    2003-2004 – In the Darfur region of Sudan, the United Nations estimates that 300,000 people have been killed. In July 2004, the US House of Representatives and the Senate pass resolutions declaring the crisis in Darfur to be genocide.

    2008 – Fugitive Radovan Karadzic, former Bosnian Serb leader, is arrested. He is charged with genocide in connection with the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. On March 24, 2016, Karadzic is found guilty of 10 of the 11 charges against him, including one count of genocide. He is sentenced to 40 years in prison. Three years later, the sentence is changed to life in prison by appeal judges at a UN court in the Hague, Netherlands.

    March 4, 2009 – The ICC issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

    June 4, 2013 – The ICTR unseals a 2012 updated indictment against Ladislas Ntaganzwa. The former mayor of a town in south Rwanda is indicted on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and other violations of international humanitarian law during the 1994 killings in Rwanda.

    August 2014 – ISIS fighters attack the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, home of a religious minority group called the Yazidis. A Yazidi lawmaker says that 500 men have been killed, 70 children have died of thirst and women are being sold into slavery.

    December 9, 2015 – The arrest of Ntaganzwa is announced. On May 28, 2020, Ntaganzwa is convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law by the High Court Chamber for International Crimes in Rwanda. He is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

    January 2016 – According to a 2016 United Nations report, ISIS is believed to be holding 3,500 people as slaves, most of which are women and children from the Yazidi community and other minority groups. On March 17, 2016, US Secretary of State John Kerry announces that the United States has determined that ISIS’ action against the Yazidis and other minority groups in Iraq and Syria constitutes genocide.

    September 18, 2018 – In its “Report of the independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar,” the United Nations finds that “there is sufficient information to warrant the investigation and prosecution of senior officials” on charges of genocide against Rohingya Muslims.

    November 2018 – Two Khmer Rouge senior surviving leaders are found guilty of genocide and other charges against Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, now 92 and 87, are sentenced to life in prison by an international tribunal in Cambodia.

    January 23, 2020 – The UN’s top court orders Myanmar to prevent acts of genocide against the country’s persecuted Rohingya minority and to stop destroying evidence, in a landmark case at The Hague. The case was brought to the International Court of Justice by the tiny West African nation of The Gambia, which in November alleged that Myanmar committed “genocidal acts.”

    May 16, 2020 – Félicien Kabuga, one of the last key suspects in the Rwandan genocide, is captured in Asnières-Sur-Seine, a Paris suburb. Indicted in 1997 on seven counts including genocide, he has been a fugitive for more than 20 years. Kabuga is transferred to the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) October 26. In an order published June 6, 2023, the IRMCT rules that Kabuga is no longer capable of “meaningful participation” in his trial.

    March 21, 2022 – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announces that the United States has determined that the military of Myanmar committed genocide against the country’s Rohingya population in 2016 and 2017.

    December 29, 2023 – According to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), South Africa has filed an application at the court to begin proceedings over allegations of genocide against Israel for its war against Hamas in Gaza. In a hearing on January 26, 2024, the ICJ orders Israel to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza but stopped short of calling for Israel to suspend its military campaign in Gaza, as South Africa had requested.

    February 2, 2024 – The ICJ says that it will move forward with a 2022 case brought by Ukraine over Russia’s justification of its February 2022 invasion. Kyiv had asked the court to declare it did not commit genocide in eastern Ukraine – a claim made by Russia as a pretext for launching its attack.

    Remembering the Rwanda genocide, 25 years on

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  • Climate change a health risk for 70% of world’s workers, UN warns

    Climate change a health risk for 70% of world’s workers, UN warns

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    Heat caused record-high health emergencies last year


    Heat caused record-high health emergencies last year

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    More than 70% of workers around the world face climate change-related health risks, with more than 2.4 billion people likely to be exposed to excessive heat on the job, according to a report released Monday by the United Nations. 

    Climate change is already having a severe impact on the safety and health of workers around the world as excessive heat, extreme weather, solar UV radiation and air pollution have resulted in an alarming increase in some diseases, according to the findings from the International Labour Organization, a U.N. agency. 

    An estimated 18,970 lives are lost each year due to occupational injuries attributable to excessive heat, and more than 26.2 million people are living with chronic kidney disease related to workplace heat stress, the report states. 

    More than 860,000 outdoor workers a year die from exposure to air pollution, and nearly 19,000 people die each year from non-melanoma skin cancer from exposure to solar UV radiation.

    “Occupational safety and health considerations must become part of our climate change responses, both policies and actions,” Manal Azzi, a team lead of occupational safety and health at the ILO, stated. 

    As average temperatures rise, heat illness is a growing safety and health concern for workers throughout the world, including in the U.S. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates environmental heat exposure claimed the lives of 36 workers in 2021 and 56 in 2020.

    More recently, a 26-year-old man suffered fatal heat-related injuries while working in an open sugar cane field in Belle Glade, Florida, as the heat index hit 97 degrees, the DOL said last week, citing a contractor for not protecting the worker. 

    “This young man’s life ended on his first day on the job because his employer did not fulfill its duty to protect employees from heat exposure, a known and increasingly dangerous hazard,” Condell Eastmond, OSHA’s area director in Fort Lauderdale, stated of the September death. 

    Exposure to environmental heat killed 999 U.S. workers from 1992 to 2021, averaging 33 fatalities a year, according to the Department of Labor. That said, statistics for occupational heat-related illnesses, injuries and deaths are likely “vast underestimates,” the agency stated. 

    Kate Gibson

    Kate Gibson is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch in New York.

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  • Gaza war goes on as Israel weighs Iran response options

    Gaza war goes on as Israel weighs Iran response options

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    Gaza war goes on as Israel weighs Iran response options – CBS News


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    Israeli officials are still weighing how to respond to Iran’s recent drone and missile attack. But the war in Gaza is still ongoing, and the U.N. says more aid is still desperately needed for Palestinians in the territory. Debora Patta reports.

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  • Saint James School of Medicine Receives $30,000 Grant From UNDP for Launch of Bachelor’s-Level Program in St. Vincent and the Grenadines

    Saint James School of Medicine Receives $30,000 Grant From UNDP for Launch of Bachelor’s-Level Program in St. Vincent and the Grenadines

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    United Nations Development Fund Supported the Development of the New Higher Education Program in St. Vincent and the Grenadines


    KINGSTOWN, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, April 11, 2024 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Saint James School of Medicine (SJSM), a leading institution dedicated to providing quality medical education, is proud to announce the receipt of a $30,000 grant from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). This significant financial support will spearhead the launch of an innovative Bachelor’s-level program in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, aimed at improving the higher education offering in the country.  

    The new Bachelor’s Degree in Health Sciences is designed to offer comprehensive education and training in health sciences, preparing students for advanced medical degrees and careers in healthcare. With an emphasis on practical skills, research, and community health, the program is set to become a cornerstone of medical education in the Caribbean region.

    Kaushik Guha, the Executive Vice President of Saint James School of Medicine, expressed his gratitude and excitement about the collaboration. “This generous grant from the UNDP marks a significant milestone for our institution and higher education in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The idea for this program came from the Minister of Education of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Honourable Curtis King. With his help and guidance, and the financial support from UNDP, this program will help expand the higher education offering in St. Vincent and the Caribbean. The introduction of this program enables us to expand our academic offerings and reinforces our commitment to training competent, compassionate healthcare professionals capable of addressing global health challenges.”

    The funding from the UNDP will facilitate the development of state-of-the-art facilities, including modern classrooms, laboratories, and research centers. Additionally, it will support the implementation of community health initiatives, providing students with hands-on experience in addressing health issues within local communities.

    Prospective students and interested parties can find more information about the program and application processes on the Saint James School of Medicine website.

    About Saint James School of Medicine:

    Saint James School of Medicine is committed to offering students a high-quality medical education at an affordable price. With campuses in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Anguilla, SJSM is dedicated to producing highly skilled, ethical, and compassionate physicians who are ready to meet the healthcare challenges of today and tomorrow.

    Source: Saint James School of Medicine

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