United News of Bangladesh

UNICEF, the UN Children's Fund, has warned that by 2050, nearly every child on earth would be affected by heatwaves, which have already become an inevitable health risk for many nations. Today, 559 million children are already exposed to a high number of heatwaves, placing them on the front lines of climate change, the UN agency noted. More than two billion youngsters are expected to be exposed to "more frequent, longer lasting, and more severe" heatwaves by the middle of this century. “The climate crisis is a child rights crisis – and it is already taking a devastating toll on children’s lives and futures,” warned UNICEF Executive Director, Catherine Russell. This year’s wildfires and heatwaves that have swept through India, Europe, and North America were “yet another sobering example of the impact of climate change on children”, she added. New data from the agency published in its report on Tuesday, The Coldest Year Of The Rest Of Their Lives, underscores that young children face greater risks than adults when faced with extreme heat events. This is because they are less able to regulate their body temperature compared to adults. The more heatwaves children are exposed to, the greater the chance of health problems including chronic respiratory conditions, asthma, and cardiovascular diseases. Read: Supporting Mothers at Work: UNICEF joins hands with Bangladesh garment industry “The world urgently needs to invest in building their resilience – and in adapting all the systems children rely on to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing climate,” UNICEF maintained. This is regardless of whether average global temperatures rise by 1.7 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels if greenhouse gas emissions are low, or whether they rise by 2.4C, if emissions are high. Protecting children from the escalating impacts of heatwaves should be a priority for all countries, UNICEF said, in a call for “urgent and dramatic emissions mitigation measures to contain global heating - and protect lives”. Children in northern regions will face the most dramatic increases in high heatwave severity, while by 2050, nearly half of all children in Africa and Asia will face sustained exposure to extreme high temperatures over 35C (95F), UN Children’s Fund data showed. “This will have a devastating impact on children,” said Vanessa Nakate, climate activist and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. “The more frequent, longer lasting and more severe heatwaves children are exposed to, the greater the impacts on health, safety, nutrition, education, access to water and future livelihoods.” “Almost every country is experiencing changing heatwaves,” UNICEF said. “What each government does now will determine the survival of those least responsible for this crisis – our children and young people.”

Rishi Sunak became Britain’s third prime minister of the year on Tuesday and now must turn his attention to taming an economic crisis that has left the country’s finances in a precarious state and millions of Britons struggling to afford food and energy bills. Sunak, the U.K.’s first leader of color, met at Buckingham Palace with King Charles III, who had just accepted the resignation of Liz Truss. In Britain’s constitutional monarchy, the monarch plays a ceremonial role in appointing government leaders. Sunak — at 42 the youngest British leader in more than 200 years — is expected to immediately begin appointing a Cabinet and getting to grips with an economy sliding toward recession. The third Conservative prime minister this year, he will also try to unite a governing party that is riven with divisions. Sunak was selected as leader of the governing Conservative Party on Monday as it tries to stabilize the economy, and its own plunging popularity, after the brief, disastrous term of Liz Truss. Truss departed after making a public statement outside 10 Downing St., seven weeks to the day after she was appointed prime minister by Queen Elizabeth II, who died two days later. Truss offered a defense of her low-tax economic vision and her brief term in office before being driven from the prime minister's official residence for the last time. “I am more convinced than ever that we need to be bold and confront the problems we face," she said. She stood by the free-market principles of “lower taxes” and “delivering growth,” despite the market mayhem triggered by her Sept. 23 budget package. Truss wished Sunak success as Britain continues "to battle through a storm.” Sunak's top priorities will be appointing Cabinet ministers, and preparing for a budget statement that will set out how the government plans to come up with billions of pounds (dollars) to fill a fiscal hole created by soaring inflation and a sluggish economy, and exacerbated by Truss’ destabilizing economic experiments. The statement, set to feature tax increases and spending cuts, is currently due to be made in Parliament on Monday by Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt — if Sunak keeps him in the job. Sunak, who was Treasury chief himself for two years until July, said Monday that Britain faces “a profound economic challenge.” Sunak becomes prime minister in a remarkable reversal of fortune just weeks after he lost to Truss in a Conservative election to replace former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Party members in the summer chose her tax-cutting boosterism over his warnings that inflation must be tamed. Truss conceded last week that she could not deliver on her plans — but only after her attempts triggered market chaos and worsened inflation at a time when millions of Britons were already struggling with soaring borrowing costs and rising energy and food prices. The party is now desperate for someone to right the ship after months of chaos under Truss and Johnson, who quit in July after becoming mired in ethics scandals. Sunak was chosen as Conservative leader after becoming the only candidate to clear the hurdle of 100 nominations from fellow lawmakers to run in the party election. Sunak defeated rival Penny Mordaunt, who may get a job in his government, and the ousted Johnson, who dashed back from a Caribbean vacation to rally support for a comeback bid but failed to get enough backing to run. As well as stabilizing the U.K. economy, Sunak must try to unite a governing party that has descended into acrimony as its poll ratings have plunged. Conservative lawmaker Victoria Atkins, a Sunak ally, said the party would “settle down” under Sunak. “We all understand that we’ve now really got to get behind Rishi — and, in fairness, that’s exactly what the party has done,” she told radio station LBC.

Salman Rushdie’s agent says the author has lost sight in one eye and the use of a hand as he recovers from an attack from a man who rushed the stage at an August literary event in western New York, according to a published report. Literary agent Andrew Wylie told the Spanish language newspaper El Pais in an article published Saturday that Rushdie suffered three serious wounds to his neck and 15 more wounds to his chest and torso in the attack that took away sight in an eye and left a hand incapacitated. Rushdie, 75, spent years in hiding after Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a 1989 edict, a fatwa, calling for his death after publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims consider blasphemous. Over the past two decades, Rushdie has traveled freely. Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, has been incarcerated after pleading not guilty to attempted murder and assault in the Aug. 12 attack on Rushdie as he was being introduced at the Chautauqua Institution, a rurally located center 55 miles (89 kilometers) southwest of Buffalo that is known for its summertime lecture series. After the attack, Rushdie was treated at a Pennsylvania hospital, where he was briefly put on a ventilator to recover from what Wylie told El Pais was a “brutal attack” that cut nerves to one arm. Wylie told the newspaper he could not say whether Rushdie remained in a hospital or discuss his whereabouts. “He’s going to live ... That’s the important thing,” Wylie said. The attack was along the lines of what Rushie and his agent have thought was the “principal danger ... a random person coming out of nowhere and attacking,” Wylie told El Pais. “So you can’t protect against it because it’s totally unexpected and illogical,” he said. Wylie told the newspaper it was like Beatles member John Lennon’s murder. Lennon was shot to death by Mark David Chapman outside his Manhattan apartment building Dec. 8, 1980, hours after the singer had signed an autograph for Chapman. In a jailhouse interview with The New York Post, Matar said he disliked Rushdie and praised Khomeini. Iran has denied involvement in the attack.

As many as 15 people were killed and 40 others injured after a bus crashed into a truck parked along a busy stretch in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh in the small hours of Saturday. The tragedy occurred near Suhagi Pahari in Rewa district, some 600km from Madhya Pradesh capital Bhopal, when a group of 100 migrant workers was returning to their home district of Uttar Pradesh in northern India for Diwali (festival of lights) on that ill-fated bus. "The bus hit the truck from behind at high speed after its driver failed to spot the parked vehicle. The impact of the collision was so strong that 15 passengers died on the spot," a senior police officer told the local media. Those injured were taken to a hospital in Suhagi. "Few with serious injuries were later shifted to Rewa's Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital," he said. A probe has been ordered into the accident, the officer added. Road accidents are common in India, with one taking place every four minutes. These accidents are often blamed on poor roads, rash driving and scant regard for traffic laws. The Indian government's implementation of stricter traffic laws in recent years has failed to rein in accidents, which claim over 100,000 lives every year.  

The United States and key Western allies accused Russia on Friday of using Iranian drones to attack civilians and power plants in Ukraine in violation of a 2015 U.N. Security Council resolution and international humanitarian law. Russia countered by accusing Ukraine of attacking infrastructure and civilians for eight years in the eastern separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed earlier this year. The U.S., France, Germany and Britain supported Ukraine’s call for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to send a team to investigate the origin of the drones. Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the drones are Russian and warned that an investigation would violate the U.N. Charter and seriously affect relations between Russia and the United Nations. U.S. deputy ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis said that “the U.N. must investigate any violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions — and we must not allow Russia or others to impede or threaten the U.N. from carrying out its mandated responsibilities.” The Western clash with Russia over attacks on civilians and infrastructure and the use of Iranian drones came at an open council meeting that also focused on the dire humanitarian situation in Ukraine as winter approaches. Almost 18 million people, more than 40% of Ukraine’s population, need humanitarian assistance, U.N. humanitarian coordinator Denise Brown says. U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo expressed grave concern to the council that Russian missile and drone attacks between Oct. 10 and Oct. 18 in cities and towns across Ukraine killed at least 38 Ukrainian civilians, injured at least 117 and destroyed critical energy infrastructure, including power plants. She cited the Ukrainian government’s announcement that 30% of the country’s energy facilities have been hit, most notably in the capital Kyiv and in the Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, Kharkiv and Sumy regions. “Combined with soaring gas and coal prices, the deprivation caused by these attacks threatens to expose millions of civilians to extreme hardship and even life-endangering conditions this winter,” she said. DiCarlo, the U.N. undersecretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, said that “under international humanitarian law, attacks targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited.” So are “attacks against military objectives that may be expected to cause harm to civilians that would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated,” she said. Nebenzia claimed that high-precision missile strikes and Russian drones — not Iranian drones — hit a large number of military targets that included infrastructure in an effort to degrade Ukrainian military activities. “Of course, this did not sit well with the West and they became hysterical, and this is what we’re witnessing loudly and clearly today at the meeting,” the Russian ambassador said. He said the West doesn’t want “to face facts” and acknowledge that civilian infrastructure was hit only in cases where drones had to change course because of Ukrainian defense actions. He said Ukrainian air defenses also hit civilian sites because they missed incoming attacks. In a letter to the Security Council on Wednesday, Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya accused Iran of violating a Security Council ban on the transfer of drones capable of flying 300 kilometers (about 185 miles). That provision was part of Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six key nations — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear activities and preventing the country from developing a nuclear weapon. U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear agreement in 2018 and negotiations between the Biden administration and Iran for the United States to rejoin the deal have stalled. Under the resolution, a conventional arms embargo on Iran was in place until October 2020. But restrictions on missiles and related technologies run until October 2023, and Western diplomats say that includes the export and purchase of advanced military systems such as drones, which are also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. Iranian Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said Wednesday that he “categorically rejected unfounded and unsubstantiated claims that Iran has transferred UAVs for the use (in) the conflict in Ukraine.” He accused unnamed countries of trying to launch a disinformation campaign to “wrongly establish a link” with the U.N. resolution. “Moreover, Iran is of the firm belief that none of its arms exports, including UAVs, to any country” violate Resolution 2231, he added. France, Germany and Britain on Friday supported Ukraine’s accusation that Iranian has supplies drones to Russia in violation of the 2015 resolution and they are being used in attacks on civilians and power plants in Ukraine. They backed Kyiv’s call for a U.N. investigation. The three European countries said in a joint letter to the 15 council members that reports in open sources suggest Iran intends to transfer more drones to Russia along with ballistic missiles. Neither Iran nor Russia sought advance approval from the council for the transfer of Mohajer and Shahed UAVs and therefore “have violated resolution 2231,” the letter said. The U.S. sent a similar letter, saying Iranian drones were transferred to Russia in late August and requesting the U.N. Secretariat team responsible for monitoring the resolution’s implementation to “conduct a technical and impartial investigation that assesses the type of UAV’s involved in these transfers.” Nebenzia also sent a letter contending that DiCarlo is siding with the West on carrying out an investigation. His letter insists that “the U.N. Secretariat has no authority to conduct, or in any other form engage, in any `investigation’” related to Resolution 2231.

A federal appeals court late Friday issued an administrative stay temporarily blocking President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel billions of dollars in federal student loans, throwing the program into limbo just days after people began applying for loan forgiveness. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals issued the stay while it considers a motion from six Republican-led states to block the program. The stay ordered the Biden administration not to act on the program while it considers the appeal. It’s unclear what the decision means for the 22 million borrowers who already applied for the relief. The Biden administration had promised not to clear any debt before Oct. 23 as it battled the legal challenges, but the soonest it was expected to begin erasing debt was mid-November. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre encouraged borrowers to continue to apply for the relief, saying the court’s temporary order did not prevent applications or the review of applications. “We will continue to move full speed ahead in our preparations in compliance with this order,” she said in a statement. “And, the Administration will continue to fight Republican officials suing to block our efforts to provide relief to working families.” The crucial question now is whether the issue will be resolved before Jan. 1, when payments on federal student loans are expected to restart after being paused during the pandemic. Millions of Americans were expected to get their debt canceled entirely under Biden’s plan, but they now face uncertainty about whether they will need to start making payments in January. Biden has said his previous extension of the payment pause would be the final one, but economists worry that many Americans may not have regained financial footing after the upheaval of the pandemic. If borrowers who were expecting debt cancellation are asked to make payments in January, there’s fear that many could fall behind on the bills and default on their loans. A notice of appeal to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was filed late Thursday, hours after U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey in St. Louis ruled that since the states of Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina failed to establish standing, “the Court lacks jurisdiction to hear this case.” Separately, the six states also asked the district court for an injunction prohibiting the administration from implementing the debt cancellation plan until the appeals process plays out. Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson, one of the six attorneys general leading the effort to block the debt relief program, praised the court’s decision. “We are pleased the temporary stay has been granted,” Peterson said in a statement. “It’s very important that the legal issues involving presidential power be analyzed by the court before transferring over $400 billion in debt to American taxpayers.” Speaking before Friday’s ruling at Delaware State University, a historically Black university where the majority of students receive federal Pell Grants, Biden touted the number of applicants who have applied for the loan relief in the week since his administration made its online application available. The plan, announced in August, would cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for those making less than $125,000 or households with less than $250,000 in income. Pell Grant recipients, who typically demonstrate more financial need, will get an additional $10,000 in debt forgiven. The Congressional Budget Office has said the program will cost about $400 billion over the next three decades. James Campbell, an attorney for the Nebraska attorney general’s office, told Autrey at an Oct. 12 hearing that the administration is acting outside its authorities in a way that will cost states millions of dollars. The cancellation applies to federal student loans used to attend undergraduate and graduate school, along with Parent Plus loans. Current college students qualify if their loans were disbursed before July 1. The plan makes 43 million borrowers eligible for some debt forgiveness, with 20 million who could get their debt erased entirely, according to the administration. The announcement immediately became a major political issue ahead of the November midterm elections. Conservative attorneys, Republican lawmakers and business-oriented groups have asserted that Biden overstepped his authority in taking such sweeping action without the assent of Congress. They called it an unfair government giveaway for relatively affluent people at the expense of taxpayers who didn’t pursue higher education. Many Democratic lawmakers facing tough reelection contests have distanced themselves from the plan. Biden on Friday blasted Republicans who have criticized his relief program, saying “their outrage is wrong and it’s hypocritical.” He noted that some Republican officials had debt and pandemic relief loans forgiven. The six states sued in September. Lawyers for the administration countered that the Department of Education has “broad authority to manage the federal student financial aid programs.” A court filing stated that the 2003 Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, or HEROES Act, allows the secretary of education to waive or modify terms of federal student loans in times of war or national emergency. “COVID-19 is such an emergency,” the filing stated. The HEROES Act was enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to help members of the military. The Justice Department says the law allows Biden to reduce or erase student loan debt during a national emergency. Republicans argue the administration is misinterpreting the law, in part because the pandemic no longer qualifies as a national emergency. Justice Department attorney Brian Netter told Autrey at the Oct. 12 hearing that fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic is still rippling. He said student loan defaults have skyrocketed over the past 2 1/2 years. Other lawsuits also have sought to stop the program. Earlier Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected an appeal from a Wisconsin taxpayers group seeking to stop the debt cancellation program. Barrett, who oversees emergency appeals from Wisconsin and neighboring states, did not comment in turning away the appeal from the Brown County Taxpayers Association. The group wrote in its Supreme Court filing that it needed an emergency order because the administration could begin canceling outstanding student debt as soon as Sunday.

Asian and Pacific countries Friday agreed to adopt a six-point Jakarta Declaration for disability-inclusive development, including through advancing meaningful participation of around 700 million persons with disabilities in the region. As of June 2021, 47 of the 53 ESCAP member states had ratified or acceded to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Jakarta Declaration on the Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities 2023-2032 aims to further implementation of the Incheon Strategy – the world's first set of disability-specific regional development goals adopted in 2012. The declaration was adopted at the conclusion of a high-level intergovernmental meeting convened by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and hosted by Indonesia to review the progress made in the past 10 years, share good practices and forge consensus on new strategic directions. "Our policies should be developed and implemented with the full and meaningful participation of persons with disabilities. This principle should underpin all of our work in disability-inclusive development," United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana said. "Our consensus today demonstrates our recognition of the criticality of disability-inclusive development. It also reiterates member states' commitment to ensuring the meaningful participation of women and men with diverse disabilities to leave no one behind in the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development," Tri Rismaharini, the minister of social affairs of Indonesia, said. Despite policy advances in the region, people with disabilities continue to face significant barriers in society – often faring worse in the labour market, being less likely to receive education and remaining underrepresented in political processes compared to their peers without disabilities. The three-day meeting saw ministers, officials and stakeholder group representatives from 41 countries delve into innovative strategies for the region to remove such barriers while responding to emerging challenges, such as population ageing, digital transformation and climate change. Several key priorities for the region were also explored such as enhancing disability-specific social protection schemes, strengthening decent work and entrepreneurship opportunities, providing inclusive education for all learners with disabilities, ensuring disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction and resilience measures, and improving the reliability of disability-disaggregated data.  

Many Americans remain pessimistic about the state of U.S. democracy and the way elected officials are chosen -- nearly two years after a divisive presidential election spurred false claims of widespread fraud and a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol. Only about half of Americans have high confidence that votes in the upcoming midterm elections will be counted accurately, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, though that’s an improvement from about 4 in 10 saying that just before the 2020 presidential election. Just 9% of U.S. adults think democracy is working “extremely” or “very well,” while 52% say it’s not working well. In a reversal from two years ago, Republicans are now more likely than Democrats to say democracy is not working well. This year, 68% of Republicans feel this way compared with 32% two years ago. The share of Democrats with a sour outlook on how democracy is functioning in the U.S. dropped from 63% to 40%. Ronald McGraw Sr., 67, of Indianapolis, is a retired construction worker who recently registered to vote and intends to cast a ballot for the first time this year. “I thought I’d let everybody else put their vote in and just go with the flow, but this whole thing is at stake now,” he said, referring to democracy, the economy, ”everything, how the whole country runs.” McGraw, who is Black and considers himself a moderate, said a big concern is the political turmoil in the country and the fact that he sees too many self-serving politicians concerned with power, especially those who work against the interest of minorities. He said he registered as a Republican but did not give any thought to party platforms or stances at the time. “I am paying attention now,” he said. After every presidential election, members of the losing candidate’s party can experience a letdown. The fallout from the 2020 election has been deeper, fueled by the lies from former President Donald Trump and his allies that Democrats stole the election. There is no evidence of widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines. Exhaustive reviews in key states upheld Democrat Joe Biden’s win, while judges — including some appointed by Trump — dismissed numerous lawsuits challenging the outcome. Trump’s own attorney general, William Barr, called the claims bogus. The general despair over democracy comes after decades of increasing polarization nationwide, from the presidential and congressional races down to local contests such as races for school boards. Overall, just a quarter of U.S. adults — including similar percentages of Republicans and Democrats — say they are optimistic about the way leaders are chosen, while 43% say they are pessimistic. An additional 31% feel neither. Adam Coykendall, a 31-year-old social studies teacher from Ashland, Wisconsin, said he sees party loyalties driving lawmakers more than the good of the country. “I feel like everything is becoming a little more divisive, a little more polarized, more focused on party loyalty ... rather than working for your constituency, having things that work for people rather than working for the party,” said Coykendall, who described himself as an independent who leans toward the Democratic Party. The AP-NORC poll also found a large segment of Republicans, 58%, still believe Biden’s election wasn’t legitimate. That’s down slightly from 66% in July 2021. Gary Phelps, a 70-year-old retired truck driver in Clearwater, Minnesota, accepts Biden is president but doesn’t think he was legitimately elected. Phelps said he was concerned about voter fraud, mail ballots being received and counted after Election Day, and irregularities with some voting machines, although he acknowledged it’s based on his feeling rather than evidence. Phelps remains concerned about the voting process and whether the tallies will be accurate. “I would hope so, but I don’t think so,” the Republican-leaning independent said. The poll shows 47% of Americans say they have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence that the votes in the 2022 midterm elections will be counted accurately. Confidence is highest among Democrats, 74% of whom say they’re highly confident. On the Republican side, confidence in elections is decidedly mixed: 25% have high confidence, 30% have moderate confidence and 45% have little to no confidence. That erosion of trust comes after two years of Trump and his allies promoting lies about the 2020 presidential election and peddling conspiracy theories about voting machines. Narratives about mailed ballots mysteriously changing vote totals have been one persistent source of misinformation. To be clear, results announced on election night are unofficial and often incomplete. It’s normal for counting to continue several days after Election Day, as mailed ballots received by their deadline are processed and added to the tally. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge of mailed balloting as voters opted to avoid crowded polling stations. A large number of those ballots slowed down the results as local election offices worked through the steps to verify the ballots and ensure they matched registered voters. Julie Duggan, a 31-year-old police officer from Chicago, is among the Republicans who does not believe Biden’s win was legitimate. She said watching his gaffes and missteps, it was impossible to believe he garnered enough support to win. She is concerned about the country’s direction, citing inflation, illegal immigration, crime rates and a lack of respect for law enforcement. “If we don’t get the right people in, we will be at the point of no return,” she said, adding she hopes elections will be run fairly but has her doubts. “My confidence has definitely been shaken.”

A new study finds that some people really are “mosquito magnets” and it probably has to do with the way they smell. The researchers found that people who are most attractive to mosquitoes produce a lot of certain chemicals on their skin that are tied to smell. And bad news for mosquito magnets: The bloodsuckers stay loyal to their favorites over time. “If you have high levels of this stuff on your skin, you’re going to be the one at the picnic getting all the bites,” said study author Leslie Vosshall, a neurobiologist at Rockefeller University in New York. There’s a lot of folklore about who gets bitten more but many claims aren’t backed up with strong evidence, said Vosshall. To put mosquito magnetism to the test, the researchers designed an experiment pitting people’s scents against each other, explained study author Maria Elena De Obaldia. Their findings were published Tuesday in the journal Cell. They asked 64 volunteers from the university and nearby to wear nylon stockings around their forearms to pick up their skin smells. The stockings were put in separate traps at the end of a long tube, then dozens of mosquitos were released. “They would basically swarm to the most attractive subjects,” De Obaldia said. “It became very obvious right away.” Scientists held a round-robin tournament and ended up with a striking gap: The biggest mosquito magnet was around 100 times more attractive to the mosquitoes than the last place finisher. The experiment used the Aedes aegypti mosquito that spreads diseases like yellow fever, Zika and dengue. Vosshall said she’d expect similar results from other kinds, but would need more research to confirm. By testing the same people over multiple years, the study showed that these big differences stick around, said Matt DeGennaro, a neurogeneticist at Florida International University who was not involved with the research. “Mosquito magnets seem to remain mosquito magnets,” DeGennaro said. Out of the favorites, the researchers found a common factor: Mosquito magnets had high levels of certain acids on their skin. These “greasy molecules” are part of the skin’s natural moisturizing layer, and people produce them in different amounts, Vosshall said. The healthy bacteria that live on the skin eat up these acids and produce part of our skin’s odor profile, she said. You can’t get rid of these acids without damaging your skin health too, said Vosshall, who is paid by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and serves as its chief scientific officer. The institute also supports The Associated Press’ Health and Science Department. But the research could help find new methods to repel mosquitoes, said Jeff Riffell, a neurobiologist at the University of Washington who was not involved with the study. There may be ways to tinker with skin bacteria and change humans’ tantalizing smells, he said. Still, figuring out ways to fight off mosquitoes isn’t easy, Riffell said, since the critters have evolved to be “lean, mean biting machines.” The study proved this point: Researchers also did the experiment with mosquitoes whose genes were edited to damage their sense of smell. The bugs still flocked to the same mosquito magnets. “Mosquitoes are resilient,” Vosshall said. “They have many backup plans to be able to find us and bite us”.  

The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF Monday welcomed funding agreements from the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSRelief) valued at $10 million to bolster polio and measles programmes in eight countries. The agreement was signed on the sidelines of the World Health Summit in Berlin. The new funding will provide UNICEF and WHO with $5 million each in response to a call for emergency action by the WHO and UNICEF to avert major polio and measles epidemics. The WHO and UNICEF have urged countries to prioritise vaccination for children as they rebuild their immunisation systems following major global immunisation disruptions caused by Covid-19. The pandemic has left millions of vulnerable children at heightened risk of preventable childhood diseases. With the contribution from KSrelief, the WHO will support polio and measles programmes in Somalia, Iraq, and Sudan through the procurement of laboratory equipment, enhancing surveillance, digitalisation of EPI, strengthening the cold chain, and training of campaign vaccinators. UNICEF will support the five high-risk countries of Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, and Pakistan with the procurement and in-country distribution of polio and measles vaccines and supplies like cold chain equipment and syringes, recruitment and training of vaccinators, and sustainably strengthening immunisation systems. "Covid-19 has had a devastating effect on immunisation services globally," Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, said. "KSrelief's generous support will help the WHO save children's lives, benefiting an estimated 50 million people and averting major outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases including polio and measles in Somalia, Iraq and Sudan." "We can't let Covid-19 drive new epidemics of childhood disease," said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. "The pandemic disrupted routine immunisation services around the world, leaving millions of vulnerable children at heightened risk of polio, measles and other preventable childhood diseases. This new agreement will translate into lives saved and stronger immunization systems that will benefit millions of children." Dr Abdullah Al Rabeeah, supervisor general of KSrelief, said: "This cooperation agreement will strengthen global action to protect vulnerable children at increased risk from preventable childhood diseases."