U.N. officials warn the deadly Ebola virus could be spread by refugees leaving the Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province. Officials are urging neighboring countries to increase surveillance at border crossings.

The number of confirmed cases in Congo’s new outbreak of the virus has risen to 13, including three deaths, the nation’s health ministry said late Saturday. 

This latest outbreak was announced Wednesday with four confirmed cases, a week after the previous outbreak in DRC’s northwest had been declared over, having killed 33 people. It was not clear whether the new outbreak, more than 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles) away, was related. 

More than 100 armed groups are involved in long-standing conflicts in DRC’s North Kivu province. Ongoing fighting and instability in the region are adding layers of complexity and difficulty to international efforts to combat an Ebola outbreak in the region.

At least two decades of conflict has displaced more than 1 million of the province’s 8 million inhabitants. Peter Salama, World Health Organization emergency response chief, told VOA an additional threat was posed by refugees. He warned that some of those fleeing into neighboring Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi might be taking the infection with them.

“So, not only do you have the problem of tracking that internal displacement, but then you have the potential exportation of infection across borders,” Salama said. “And, that is why we are already working with the government of Uganda, particularly, but also Rwanda, which shares a border as well with northern Kivu, to be fully prepared for any eventualities across the border.”  

The U.N. refugee agency is lending its expertise to this situation.  It is preparing shelters for at least 1,000 vulnerable internally displaced persons and other extremely vulnerable people in the Ebola-affected Beni area.  It also is undertaking protection and monitoring activities.

UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic said his agency’s staff in Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania were on Ebola alert.

“Specifically, in Uganda, we have a continuous influx from the DRC.  Our operation has intensified the awareness-raising among the refugee and host communities. We have also increased the infection control and outbreak preparedness measures,” Mahecic said. “And, we also are preparing for entry screening. That could be the temperature checks for arriving Congolese refugees at the borders.”

Mahecic said around 92,000 Congolese refugees have fled to Uganda so far this year.  He said they are continuing to arrive at an average rate of between 100 and 200 a day.

Some information for this report came from AP. 
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From: MeNeedIt

Shoes have long since stopped serving only their utilitarian purpose. Over the centuries, shoes have evolved not just to protect feet but also to declare their owners’ social status — and sometimes to be worn as treasured objects of art. To honor humanity’s sometimes pricey passion for shoes and trace the world’s history through footwear, New York’s Historical Society has opened a new exhibit, appropriately called, “Walk This Way.” Elena Wolf has the story.
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From: MeNeedIt

A new era in American spaceflight was unveiled Friday, with NASA presenting the flight crews that will carry out the first test flights and operational missions aboard commercial spacecraft to be launched from U.S. soil for the first time since the space shuttle’s retirement in 2011. The test flights of the modules, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, are expected next year. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

Honeybees are essential to our food supply, but bee colonies around the world are declining. Among the main culprits are insecticides containing chemicals known as neonicotinoids, which are highly toxic to honeybees. In Europe, where about 80 percent of crops rely to some degree on insect pollination, the chemical is banned but exceptions allowed. Poland’s agriculture ministry has temporarily approved it for use in rapeseed crops, worrying the country’s beekeepers. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
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From: MeNeedIt

A Pakistani engineer has designed a system to help developing countries avoid fuel imports by making ethanol with the millions of tons of straw that are wasted each year. Faith Lapidus reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

Not many museums can say they have 500,000 items on display, but the Poster Museum in New York can. Established in 1973 in Manhattan by a passionate collector, the museum has the largest collection of posters in the world. Olga Loginova has the story.
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From: MeNeedIt

Most African farmers and small businesses operate with no way to protect themselves if disaster strikes. But that may be starting to change. A handful of companies are now offering inexpensive, tech-driven micro-insurance and are making it easy for ordinary Africans to sign up. Neha Wadekar reports for VOA from Nigeria and Kenya.
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From: MeNeedIt

Apple made history Thursday when it became the first publicly listed U.S. company to be valued at $1 trillion.

The tech giant’s share price climbed well over 2 percent in mid-session trading, boosting it about 9 percent higher since Tuesday, when it announced better-than-expected second-quarter earnings and a buyback of $20 billion worth of its own shares.

The Silicon Valley company’s stock has skyrocketed more than 50,000 percent since it went public in 1980, greatly exceeding the S&P 500’s impressive 2,000 percent gain during the same period.

Apple’s success was fueled in large part by its iPhone, which transformed it from a niche player in the burgeoning personal computer sector into a global technological powerhouse.

The company was co-founded by the late Steve Jobs, a product innovator who helped prevent the company’s collapse in the late 1990s.

As the company’s market value climbed over the decades, it revolutionized how consumers communicate with each other and how companies conduct business on a daily basis.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

The World Health Organization says expert staff and equipment have been sent to northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo to quick-start the process of combating a new outbreak of Ebola.The last outbreak of this fatal virus in Congo was declared over just a week ago.

Ebola is a constant threat in the Democratic Republic of Congo as the virus thrives in heavily forested areas. This latest outbreak is the 10th since the first one was discovered in 1976.

The World Health Organization says this new outbreak in North Kivu province is 2,500 kilometers away from Equateur Province, the site of the previous outbreak, and there is no link between the two.

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic says the DRC Ministry of Health informed WHO Wednesday that four of six samples taken in North Kivu tested positive for Ebola virus.

He says it is crucial to gain access to the area as quickly as possible.He says having people and material in the country from the outbreak in Equateur is very helpful in tackling the outbreak.

“We really need to get into the area to do epidemiological investigations, try to find cases, try to work with health workers, to strengthen infection prevention and control measures and also to start with the contact tracing,” he said. “It is, on the other hand, worrying that this area is a conflict zone.It is an area with lots of displacement, so the access can be hampered in that way.”

The virus was discovered in a village near the city of Beni in North Kivu, which hosts more than one million displaced people. The province shares borders with Rwanda and Uganda, with a lot of cross border movement due to brisk trade.

Jasarevic says WHO will work with these neighboring countries to try to prevent the virus from crossing over.

He says identifying the type of Ebola virus that is circulating is a priority, as that will tell scientists whether the vaccine used to help contain the outbreak in Equateur province can also be used in North Kivu.
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From: MeNeedIt

The rolling fields of green soybean plants growing on Fred Grieder’s Illinois farm would be a welcome sign most years … an indicator of a promising harvest in the fall.

But this isn’t most years.

Tariffs are turning away potential customers overseas, and Grieder estimates he could lose around $100 an acre if the trade war continues.

“It’s a squeeze,” he told VOA from his farm outside Bloomington, Illinois.

​Lose $100, get $14 in aid

It’s a squeeze the Trump administration has acknowledged, prompting the U.S. Department of Agriculture to plan a $12 billion aid package to help farmers like Grieder.

“If you take the $12 billion, assuming it will all go to beans, which it won’t, and divide that by our planted acreage, that’s about $14 an acre” in government aid, he said.

Grieder says the aid does not even come close to making up for the $100 loss per acre he expects.

Since May, the price per bushel for soybeans has dropped almost 20 percent over the escalating trade war between the United States and China. Tariffs threaten to cut off important export markets, cutting into profits even as U.S. farmers brace for a fifth year of declining farm income.

It’s not that Grieder isn’t grateful for the aid package, but he says he would just rather have “trade over aid.”

“We appreciate the fact that the USDA is concerned about us, and want to make us whole,” he explained. “But the reality is the numbers, in a large trade war like this, are overwhelming.”

Man-made disaster

“This is not a natural disaster; this is a man-made disaster. It’s not an act of God, some would call it an act of foolishness,” said Mark Albertson, director of strategic market development for the Illinois Soybean Association.

Albertson said he believes the trade dispute with China is a greater threat to farmers than the drought of 2012.

“We had mechanisms in place to deal with that, and we always knew that the very next year we would be able to plant our crops again and hope for the best. In this case, we don’t know that,” he said. “We don’t know what the next year brings. We don’t have necessarily hope of the trade war going away very soon, and it looks like Brazil is all too eager to take away our market share with China.

“If they get used to purchasing more and more Brazilian soybeans, that spells bad news for us. That’s the overall concern, and an aid package does nothing to solve that problem,” Albertson said.

​Biggest worry: Competitors

It’s also farmer Grieder’s biggest concern.

“Brazil, one of our largest competitors, they are always expanding,” he said. “So this could affect our markets years down the road, and I’m probably more worried about that than I am the short wash out here.”

Albertson said another major challenge is what to do with the soybeans that can’t be sold.

“It looks like we may end up putting a record amount of soybeans in storage, and when that happens, we know from history the prices will go south,” he added.

As the trade war continues, Grieder’s routine remains the same. He hopes strong global demand for soybeans outside China will make up for decreasing prices. He’s waiting to see if President Donald Trump’s trade tactics will work before permanent damage is done to the reputation — and reliability — of U.S. grain products.

“I support what he’s trying to do. I can’t say that I support his methods,” Grieder said.
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From: MeNeedIt

A little-known dispute over 3D-printed guns has morphed into a national legal debate in the last week, drawing attention to a technology that seems a bit of sci-fi fantasy and — to gun-control advocates — a dangerous way for criminals to get their hands on firearms that are easy to conceal and tough to detect.

The gun industry calls the outcry an overreaction that preys on unwarranted fears about a firearm that can barely shoot a round or two without disintegrating.

It also raises a host of constitutional questions involving First Amendment protections for free speech and Second Amendment rights to own guns.

Here are some questions and answers about the debate.

Q. What is behind the dispute?

A. Cody Wilson, the founder of Texas-based Defense Distributed, first posted downloadable blueprints for a handgun called the Liberator that could be made using a 3D printer in 2013. Within days it had been downloaded about 100,000 times until the State Department ordered him to cease, contending it violated federal export laws since some of the blueprints were saved by people outside the United States.

The dispute between Wilson and the federal government went on for years until this past June when they reached a settlement that paved the way for Wilson to resume posting the designs.

The State Department decision came amid an obscure administrative change — begun under the Obama administration — in how the weapons are regulated and administered. Military grade weapons remain under the purview of the State Department, while commercially available firearms fall under the Commerce Department. The settlement with Wilson determined that 3D-printed firearms are akin to more traditional firearms that aren’t subject to State Department regulations.

Wilson resumed sharing his blueprints for the gun the day the settlement went into effect last week.

​Q. Why does Wilson want the authority to post the designs on his website?

A. Wilson calls it a First Amendment issue. He believes the First Amendment gives him a constitutional right to disseminate the code to make a gun with a 3D printer.

“This is a very, very, very easy First Amendment question that I think people might be hesitant to accept because it involves guns and people don’t like guns,” said his lawyer, Josh Blackman.

And Wilson has a strong legal claim that distribution of the information is different than actually making an all-plastic firearm.

While it is a violation of the federal Undetectable Firearms Act to make, sell or possess a firearm that can’t be detected by magnetometers or metal detectors, what Wilson is doing is simply providing the information on how to make such a firearm.

“What Defense Distributed was doing was not making and then shipping the weapons overseas,” said Chuck James, a former federal prosecutor who is now a private lawyer with the Washington, D.C.-area firm of Williams Mullen. “They were making the data available on the web where it would be available to someone overseas.”

​Q. What kind of gun designs are available on the website?

A. Defense Distributed shows a variety of designs. The code for a 3D-printed gun is for what he calls the Liberator, which gets its name from a pistol American forces used during World War II.

His design includes a metal firing pin and a metal block. His site also includes blueprints to make various AR-platform long guns and some other handguns using more traditional means and materials.

Q. Are 3D-printed guns legal?

A. In 1988, the U.S. enacted the Undetectable Firearms Act, making it illegal to manufacture, sell or possess a firearm that couldn’t be detected by a metal detector. That law has been renewed several times by Congress and remains in effect.

If 3D-printed guns contain enough metal to be flagged by a metal detector, they are considered legal under U.S. law.

Gun-control advocates argue that the risks are too great to allow 3D-printed guns because even if they’re designed to include metal, it’s too easy for someone to not include those pieces or to remove them to skirt detection.

“It’s an absurdity. You can take the piece of metal out and put it back in at your own whims and you can take it out and walk through a metal detector undetected,” said Jonas Oransky, legal director for Everytown for Gun Safety.

Q. How well do 3D-printed guns work?

A. Gun experts and enthusiasts recoil at the suggestion that a 3D-printed gun is a true threat, calling the firearms mere novelties.

Unlike traditional firearms that can fire thousands of rounds in their lifetime, 3D-printed guns are notorious for usually lasting only a few rounds before they fall apart. They don’t have magazines that allow the usual nine or 15 rounds to be carried; instead, they usually hold a bullet or two and then must be manually loaded afterward. And they’re not usually very accurate either.

A video posted of a test by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in 2013 showed one of the guns produced from Wilson’s design — the Liberator — disintegrating into pieces after a single round was fired.

“People have got this Star Trek view” of the guns being futuristic marvels, said Chris Knox, communications director for The Firearms Coalition, a gun-rights group. “We’re not talking about exotic technology.”

Others are quick to point out that normal guns are readily available in the U.S. with little regulation, making 3D-printed guns a major hassle compared with regular weapons.

Q. What’s the status of the debate?

A. A federal judge on Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order blocking Wilson from continuing to post the designs on his site. A hearing is to be held in that case next week.

In the meantime, President Donald Trump criticized the Department of Justice advising the State Department to reach a settlement with Wilson without first consulting with him.

Wilson’s website currently displays a banner asking people to help “to uncensor the site.” Clicking a link directs the person to a page to pay membership dues ranging from $5 a month to $1,000 for a lifetime.
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From: MeNeedIt

Add plastics to the list of causes for global warming.

Scientists writing in the journal PLOS One said Wednesday that plastics emit the greenhouse gases methane and ethylene when they are exposed to sunlight and degrade.

The researchers carried out tests on such common plastic products as water bottles, shopping bags and food containers.

“Plastic represents a source of climate-relevant trace gases that is expected to increase as more plastic is produced and accumulated in the environment,” said senior researcher David Karl of the University of Hawaii.

Methane gas, both man-made and naturally occurring, is said to be a major cause of climate change.

The manufacturing and use of plastics have come under scrutiny in recent years after environmentalists discovered a massive island of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean — threatening sea life and the food supply.

Plastic drinking straws are the latest target of activists, who say they are used once and discarded because most cannot be recycled.

A graphic video of doctors pulling a plastic straw out of the bloody nose of a large sea turtle has prompted some U.S. cities and companies to phase out the straws.
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From: MeNeedIt