Category: Literacy

A study released Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows an extra shot of a COVID-19 vaccine provides solid protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death.

The federal health agency followed more than 400,000 adults in Los Angeles who were infected with either the delta or omicron variants of the coronavirus between November and this past January. Researchers found that unvaccinated residents who were infected with the delta strain between November and December were 83 times more likely to be hospitalized than those who had been vaccinated and gotten the booster shot.

Meanwhile, the study found that in January, when omicron overtook delta as the primary variant in Los Angeles, unvaccinated individuals were more than three times as likely to be infected and 23 times more likely to be hospitalized than people who were fully vaccinated and received a booster.

Elsewhere, France becomes the latest European country to relax its coronavirus restrictions. Effective Wednesday, mandatory outdoor mask-wearing will end, and audience capacity limits for concerts halls, sporting matches and other events are being phased out, according to a report Wednesday by Agence France-Presse. The relaxed mitigation standards are taking effect despite France reaching a record-setting number of new daily cases last month.

France's actions come a day after Denmark and Norway officially lifted most of their pandemic restrictions. Britain, Ireland and the Netherlands also have dropped most of their restrictions and containment measures.

Source: Voice of America

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday the United Nations is “in a race against time” to prevent millions of Afghans from falling deeper into a severe economic and humanitarian crisis.

“Livelihoods across the country have been lost. More than half the population of Afghanistan now depends on life-saving assistance,” Guterres told reporters at U.N. headquarters. “Without a more concerted effort from the international community, virtually every man, woman and child in Afghanistan could face acute poverty.”

He said the situation has become so desperate that parents have sold their babies in order to feed their other children, and health facilities are overflowing with malnourished children.

Guterres’ call comes two days after the United Nations launched its biggest humanitarian appeal ever for more than $5 billion to assist 28 million people inside Afghanistan and in five neighboring countries this year.

Last year, the U.N. and its partner agencies reached more than 18 million people across the country.

Economic collapse

The secretary-general said the biggest driver of the current crisis is the free fall of Afghanistan’s economy, which he warned must not be allowed to collapse.

“For our part, the United Nations is taking steps to inject cash into the economy through creative authorized arrangements, but it is a drop in the bucket,” he said.

Guterres said the country’s Central Bank must be preserved and assisted, and a way found for the conditional release of Afghan foreign currency reserves.

“Without creative, flexible and constructive engagement by the international community, Afghanistan’s economic situation will only worsen,” he warned.

Over the past two decades, Afghanistan’s economy has been heavily dependent on foreign aid to survive. Some 75% of the former government’s budget was donor-funded, as was 40% of its GDP.

International donors have urged the Taliban to form an inclusive government and respect the rights of women as a condition for the release of more aid, which the group has not done.

Since the Taliban took over the government in August 2021, the suspension of most international aid has contributed to the breakdown in many basic services, including electricity, health services and education. Inflation is rampant, and the price of ordinary goods is beyond the reach of most Afghans.

The U.N. has been raising the alarm for several months, saying there needs to be a mechanism for U.S. dollars from outside Afghanistan to be exchanged for Afghanis, the local currency, inside the country.

In response to a question, the U.N. chief said the United States has a very important role to play in shoring up Afghanistan’s economy because most of the global financial system operates in U.S. dollars, and because Washington has frozen billions of Afghan assets to keep them out of the Taliban’s hands.

The Taliban have repeatedly called for lifting international sanctions and for access to Afghanistan’s Central Bank assets.

Last month, World Bank donors agreed to release $280 million from its Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund. The bank had paused disbursements after the Taliban takeover. The funds were disbursed to UNICEF and the World Food Program. Guterres urged donors to make the remaining $1.2 billion available to assist Afghans in getting through the winter.

The secretary-general also reiterated his call on the Taliban to make good on pledges to respect the rights of women and girls. Their oppression of women during their previous hold on power in Afghanistan is one of the main reasons that donors are reluctant to allow them access to funds.

Source: Voice of America

LONDON —

Russia is contributing to an undersupply of natural gas to Europe, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Fatih Birol said on Wednesday, noting it comes amid a standoff between Moscow and the West over Ukraine.

The Paris-based IEA, energy watchdog for developed countries, warned that the high energy prices and consumer pain wrought by the gas crunch makes the case for future mandatory storage quotas for European companies.

"We believe there are strong elements of tightness in Europe's gas markets due to Russia's behavior," Birol told reporters, noting "today's low Russian gas flows to Europe coincide with heightened geopolitical tensions over Ukraine."

Russian gas company Gazprom reduced exports to Europe by 25% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2021 despite high market prices and reduced spot sales while other exporters boosted them, Birol said.

"The current storage deficit in the European Union is largely due to Gazprom," he added. "The low levels of storage in company's EU-based facilities account for half of the EU storage deficit although Gazprom facilities only constitute 10% of the EU's total storage capacity."

Russian energy exports have been in focus amid a standoff between Russia and the West as Russia has built up its troop presence near neighboring Ukraine, which is trying to forge closer ties with NATO.

Some European Union lawmakers have accused Russia, which supplies more than 30% of the bloc's natural gas, of using the crisis as leverage while Russia and NATO hold talks in Brussels on Wednesday.

Moscow has denied this and Gazprom has said it has fulfilled European contracts in full.

Yet Birol said Russia could increase deliveries to Europe by at least one-third through abundant spare capacity, the equivalent of 10% of the EU's average monthly gas consumption or a full LNG vessel every day via commercially available pipelines.

In contrast to its dealings with the European Union, Russia is delivering natural gas exceeding its contractual commitments to China, Birol added.

"I think regulations in Europe should be reviewed to ensure that storage levels are in effect to cover end-user needs with mandatory minimum storage obligations for all commercial operators."

Source: Voice of America

With violence by armed groups spreading beyond Mozambique’s northernmost province of Cabo Delgado into neighboring Niassa province, President Filipe Nyusi on Thursday cautioned against panic.

That comment followed the president’s assurance, at the opening of a new road Monday in Cabo Delgado’s Balama district, that young soldiers in Niassa “are waiting for the terrorists.” Nyusi attributed what he called "expanding pockets" of violence to insurgents on the run from a military offensive by Mozambican forces, bolstered by troops from Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community regional bloc.

Insurgents linked to the Islamic State have staged attacks since October 2017 in Cabo Delgado, a coastal province rich in natural gas reserves and host to an estimated $60 billion worth of international investment in gas projects. The violence has left at least 3,100 dead, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), which tracks political violence around much of the world.

Conflict there also has displaced nearly 856,000 people, nearly half of them children, according to UNICEF.

As recently as Wednesday, militants looted five villages in Cabo Delgado’s Macomia district, burning several huts and allegedly beheading a man working in a field near Nova Zambézia village, witnesses and other sources told VOA Portuguese. Authorities did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.

Attacks in Niassa, the province directly to Cabo Delgado’s west, have been reported since at least mid-November, according to ACLED.

For instance, suspected Islamist militants struck November 28 at the village of Naulala-1 in Niassa’s northeast Mecula district.

The attackers were armed with four guns “and the rest had machetes and there were some ladies with them,” local resident Gabriel Naita told VOA Portuguese, adding that “they started shooting in the air and people fled. … They looted food and the health post and took medicines.”

Residents did not mention any civilian injuries or deaths. VOA sought more details from the Niassa provincial command for the Mozambican Republic Police, but a spokeswoman, Mirza Mecuande, would neither confirm nor deny it occurred.

'The conflict is not over'

Mozambican authorities have been closemouthed “as the insurgency began to launch attacks in Niassa province” last month, according to Sam Ratner, an ACLED senior researcher focused on Mozambique.

“The Mozambican government effectively denied that this was happening,” maintaining that its interventions, aided by Rwanda and SADC, “have been successful and that we’re nearing the end” of conflict in Cabo Delgado, Ratner said. While the allied forces have made some security gains, he added, “This new development of attacks in Niassa province and expanded attacks in Cabo Delgado seems to suggest that that's not actually true — that actually the conflict is not over, is perhaps not close to being over.”

But in recent days, both Nyusi and Mozambique’s top police official acknowledged the insurgency had breached Cabo Delgado’s borders — perhaps months earlier.

Aside from the president’s comments, at an event Sunday to launch a new crime prevention effort, General Police Commander Bernardino Rafael said that the Mozambican Defense and Security Forces had killed an insurgent leader while on a patrol in Niassa’s Mecula district.

“Our patrol walked into an ambush, and in the ensuing fight one of the terrorists was shot,” Rafael said. “ … We concluded that the terrorists had moved on to Niassa province.”

Rafael, who said he had received many queries about Niassa, did not specify when the incident occurred, nor did he comment further.

August 20 attack

But Cabo Ligado — a Mozambique conflict observatory run by ACLED, Zitamar News and Mediafax — noted in a report posted Wednesday that Rafael could have referred to the August 20 “ambush of a Mozambican police vehicle on the road in Mavago district. The attack, which was not confirmed to be the work of insurgents at the time, resulted in the death of one member of the police and injuries to others,” Cabo Ligado reported.

It also said the insurgent who died may have been Ali Cassimo, an Islamic leader from Mecula.

The insurgency is connected to the Islamic State, but “the nature of that connection is a little bit unclear,” said Ratner, of ACLED. He said insurgents identify as an Islamist group whose “core grievances are really about the lack of control that local people have over their lives.” The insurgents propose wresting local control from the central government in Maputo and instead having “an Islamist form of self-government in the north.”

The U.S. State Department’s newly released Country Reports on Terrorism 2020 said that in that year in Mozambique, “an estimated 1,500 deaths were due to ISIS-Mozambique attacks.”

The report also noted challenges with border security in northern Mozambique: “Terrorists are known to cross the porous border with Tanzania, which serves as a recruitment and transit point for terrorist and criminal organizations.”

Observers long have warned that the insurgency likely could not be contained to Cabo Delgado. In early January, Niassa’s chief police commander, Arnaldo Chefo, expressed concern that as “neighbors to that province, we have to be constantly vigilant so that terrorists do not penetrate our province.”

The SADC military support mission in Mozambique is scheduled to end in January. Researcher Borges Nhamirre said he believed the SADC forces would be renewed. But, if they withdraw, he told VOA Portuguese, “it will be a total failure for the entire region. I think that what the region should do is mobilize more funds to maintain its mission in Mozambique.”

In Ratner’s view, “the most pressing issue” in Cabo Delgado is a food shortage, leaving civilians increasingly vulnerable and desperate. The World Food Program says a combination of manmade conflict, climate change and COVID has heightened hunger risks, while funding shortfalls limit what the agency can provide to needy people everywhere, including those who have been displaced in northern Mozambique.

“There’s pressure for displaced people to return to the conflict zone to find food,” Ratner noted, which “both puts them at greater danger and also gives insurgents access to more resources that civilians bring with them.”

Source: Voice of America

The Chinese government is promoting Chinese language and culture through Confucius Institute programs worldwide, including in Africa. Some educators say they're concerned about what they say is censorship in Chinese-funded programs.

Steve Wakoli has been working for three years to perfect his skills in kung fu, a popular martial art taught at the Kenyatta University Confucius Institute.

He’s also a teacher at the institute, where hundreds of students are learning about Chinese culture and language at the facility named after the ancient Chinese philosopher whose teachings are a cornerstone of life in East Asia.

There are about 525 Chinese-funded Confucius Institutes worldwide, including 54 in Africa, according to a 2019 U.S. Senate report by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Jacob Ratemo is one of more than 500 students enrolled here.

He says learning about Chinese language and culture will help him find better work. But Ratemo acknowledges the classes avoid subjects that are politically sensitive in China.

"But the advantage is, especially when you are at the university level, you can access such matters. I can go to VOA News on a regular basis and see what is going on in China. I can go to Google and get that information. So, yes, I can admit there are a few challenges when you ask those questions to the Chinese themselves," Ratemo said.

According to the Senate report, “Confucius Institute funding comes with strings that can compromise academic freedom.” For example, the Chinese teachers sign contracts with Beijing pledging not to damage China’s national interests.

Confucius Institute management turned down VOA's requests for comment.

Teacher Steve Wakoli says the institute's syllabus does not allow much time for politically sensitive topics and debate.

But analysts say the Confucius Institutes suppress discussions on topics like Taiwan and Hong Kong to protect their funding from the Chinese government. Martin Oloo is a political analyst in Kenya.

"Indeed, there have been issues around whether or not the institute is being used to propound what would be seen as anti-democracy, anti-human rights, and those concerns are founded in terms of what is the official Chinese policy on Taiwan, on Hong Kong," Oloo said.

China considers Taiwan a wayward province and has not ruled out the use of force to reunite it with the mainland. Beijing imposed a national security law for Hong Kong in 2020 and many forms of dissent are criminalized.

Educator Jonathan Waseya told VOA that the institutes are doing an injustice to students by limiting their learning and exposure to different ideas.

"Yes, the opportunity comes in through the Confucius Institutes funded by China — that is OK. But can you get as an individual to talk about Taiwan, to talk about Hong Kong, talk about Korea, talk about North and South Korea and how the whole bigger picture fits into the geopolitics of today," Waseya said.

With so many signing up for classes at the Confucius Institutes, education experts say it is critical that students find other avenues to learn about topics that Beijing may consider politically sensitive.

Source: Voice of America