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As leaders convene, the UN pushes toward its crucial global goals. But progress is lagging
The commitments were far-reaching and ambitious. Among them: End extreme poverty and hunger. Ensure every child on Earth gets a quality secondary education. Achieve gender equality. Make significant inroads in tackling climate change. Create “universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all." And achieve all of this by 2030.
Halfway to that goal, progress is lagging badly — and in some cases going backward.
Read: Everything you need to know about this year's meeting of leaders at the UN General Assembly
At a two-day summit that begins Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will be trying to kick-start action to achieve the 17 goals adopted by world leaders in 2015, which developing countries in particular consider crucial to closing the widening inequality gap between the world’s rich and poor countries.
The goals, Guterres said, are “about righting historic wrongs, healing divisions and putting our world on a path to lasting peace.”
A 10-page political declaration to be adopted by leaders at the start of the summit recognizes that the goals are “in peril” and expresses alarm that progress is either moving too slowly or regressing to pre-2015 levels. It reaffirms more than a dozen times, in different ways, leaders’ commitment to achieve the SDGs, or sustainable development goals, reiterating their individual importance.
How can this be done in the next seven years?
A DECLARATION SHORT ON SPECIFICS
The leaders have committed to accelerating action. But the declaration they're working with is short on specifics.
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At Saturday’s start of an “SDG Action Weekend," Guterres reviewed for activists the grim findings in a U.N. report in July: Only 15% of some 140 specific targets to achieve the 17 goals are on track. Many are going in the wrong direction.
At the current rate, the report said, 575 million people will still be living in extreme poverty and 84 million children won’t even be going to elementary school in 2030 – and it will take 286 years to reach equality between men and women.
“The SDGs need a global rescue plan,” the U.N. chief said. He called the summit "the moment for governments to come to the table with concrete plans and proposals to accelerate progress.”
It isn’t just governments that need to step up, Guterres said. He urged activists as well as the business community, scientists, academics, innovators, women and young people to join in working to achieve the goals.
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U.S. First Lady Jill Biden echoed the secretary-general at a reception Sunday evening organized by the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, for global champions of education. she said progress on achieving the SDGs “looks steep.” But she said the United States “will continue to be a partner will you every step of the way."
As an educator for 39 years, she urged every country’s leader to invest in children, saying they will “help us build a more peaceful, stable world.”
A PLAN TO CLEAR OBSTACLES FROM THE PATH
Guterres said the most important initiative to rescue the overall plan is the proposal of an “SDG stimulus,” which aims to offset challenging market conditions faced by developing countries.
It calls for immediate action in three areas:
-tackling the high cost of debt and rising risks of debt distress;
-massively scaling up affordable long-term financing for development, especially by public and multilateral banks;
-expanding contingency financing to countries in need.
A February U.N. report on the SDG Stimulus said debt is battering the economies of many developing countries. It said that as of last November, 37 of the world’s 69 poorest countries were either at high risk or already in debt distress, while one in four middle-income countries, which contain the majority of the extreme poor, were at "high risk of fiscal crisis."
There are narrow rays of hope. Guterres said he was encouraged that at the recent meeting of the G20, the world’s 20 leading economies welcomed the SDG Stimulus. And he said he's hopeful that the political declaration to be adopted by leaders on Monday will lead to major action.
Read: PM Hasina off to NY to attend 78th UNGA session
The declaration says leaders will push forward the stimulus plan "to tackle the high cost of debt and rising risks of debt distress, to enhance support to developing countries and to massively scale up affordable long-term financing for development and expand contingency financing to countries in need.”
Whether those administrative promises and the momentum of a big week at the United Nations will translate into actual progress, though, remains — as before — deeply uncertain.
Everything you need to know about this year's meeting of leaders at the UN General Assembly
For two years, it was the coronavirus pandemic. Then, it was Russia's war in Ukraine. Throughout it all, the perils of climate change, poverty and inequality have steadily, increasingly thrummed through each convening of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly.
As the 78th session opens, there's no single clear crisis set to dominate the General Debate, as none of the aforementioned ones have been resolved. The high-level meeting will be set against the backdrop of an ongoing war, new political crises in West Africa and Latin America, a lingering coronavirus, economic instability, widening inequality and fresh natural disasters in the forms of devastating earthquakes,floods and fires.
In the face of this tumult, the theme for this year's General Debate will be “Rebuilding trust and reigniting global solidarity: Accelerating action on the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals towards peace, prosperity, progress and sustainability for all.”
We've updated last year's backgrounder for the 2023 high-level meeting. Here's what to know about this year's U.N. General Assembly, presided over by Trinidad and Tobago's Dennis Francis.
WHAT IS THE POINT OF THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY?
While the effectiveness of the United Nations has been questioned for as long as it has existed, the benefits of attendance are undeniable. From the dais, countries broadcast their agendas, grievances and calls to action to the entire world and for the permanent record.
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The exercise in multilateralism was born in the wake of World War II, and grounded in the hope for lasting peace. This week is a key chance for countries often drowned out by what they decry as a hegemonic world order to grab the attention of a larger audience. It’s also a chance for leaders to engage in meetings on the sidelines in neutral territory.
WHO IS COMING TO NEW YORK THIS YEAR?
Heads of state and government from at least 145 countries are expected to take the dais at the river's edge. Among them will be Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, U.S. President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — all expected in the first day. This will be Zelenskyy's first in-person appearance at the United Nations since the Russian invasion of his country — in 2022, the General Assembly voted to grant him special dispensation to submit a prerecorded speech.
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But the parade of speakers will be marked by some key absences: While they're all sending representatives, the leaders of the rest of the permanent U.N. Security Council members — France, the United Kingdom, China and Russia — will not make the trip. The presence of Vladimir Putin would certainly have been surprising, but Emmanuel Macron is a regular attendee and this would have been British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's first opportunity to address the General Assembly. Macron cited King Charles III's imminent visit; Sunak, a busy schedule.
Top leaders from other major countries, including India — who just played host to the G20 summit in New Delhi this month — and Mexico, are also slated to send ministers in their steads.
WHAT DOES THE GENERAL DEBATE LOOK LIKE?
We might be in the midst of U.S. presidential primary debate season, but the structure of the General Debate at the United Nations bears little resemblance. It doesn't lend itself to obvious fireworks — booing or interruptions or immediate rebuttals are not permitted — but that doesn’t mean intrigue and drama are absent.
Each speech alone offers a rich text and the delivery adds subtext. Speeches can be fonts of evocative language, barbs and gauzily veiled messages. They're supposed to run for 15 minutes, but many miss that mark. Last year, speeches averaged around 19 minutes, drawing a wry chiding from Slovakian President Zuzana Čaputová — clocking in under 12 minutes, her speech ended with: “And since obeying even the smallest of rules matters, let me finish here to respect the agreed time limit.” The longest speech in history ran to 269 minutes, and was delivered by Cuba's Fidel Castro in 1960.
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Member states are also allowed to exercise the right of reply, in which they can rebut criticism voiced during the General Debate. These are often fiery exchanges at day's end, but aren’t typically delivered by heads of state or heads of government — rather, lower-level members of a country's delegation. Last year, there were 21 exercises of the right of reply.
HOW LONG DOES THIS YEAR'S GENERAL DEBATE RUN?
It's still six days, as usual, but this year's General Debate ends a day later — Tuesday, Sept. 26. While past General Debates usually ran from Tuesday through Monday, with a break only on Sunday, this year there's a two-day break. A U.N. spokesperson confirmed that there will be no speeches on the usually final Monday in observance of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.
WHY DOES BRAZIL SPEAK FIRST AT THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY?
It's tradition. Early on, Brazil ventured forward when no other country would volunteer to speak first. Decades later, the South American country retains the pole position. As the host country, the United States typically speaks second (though last year, President Joe Biden had to delay his speech by a day because he was attending Queen Elizabeth II's funeral ).
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For the scores of speeches that follow, the order is determined by multiple variables, including whom a country is sending to deliver the speech (heads of state precede heads of government, who precede mere ministers and other representatives), countries' own preferences and geographic balance.
ARE NON-UN MEMBERS ALLOWED TO ATTEND?
Some. While all member states are invited to speak, not all necessarily make avail of the opportunity. But the United Nations also has permanent observers, which have access to “most meetings and relevant documentation,” per the U.N. website.
The European Union,Palestine and the Holy See (the Vatican) are permanent observers again on the docket this year. Last year, Palestine had the longest speech, with President Mahmoud Abbas clocking in at more than 47 minutes.
HOW DO I KEEP ABREAST OF WHAT'S HAPPENING AT THE UN?
While the General Assembly is not open to the public, the United Nations streams proceedings.
North Korea's Kim Jong Un heads home after Russian journey that raised concern about weapons deals
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is on his way home Sunday from Russia, ending a six-day trip that triggered global concerns about weapons transfer deals between the two countries locked in separate standoffs with the West.
Kim’s armored train departed to the sound of the Russian patriotic march song “Farewell of Slavianka” at the end of a farewell ceremony at a railway station in Artyom, a far eastern Russian city about 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the border with North Korea, Russia’s state news agency RIA reported.
Senior officials including Russia’s Minister of Natural Resources Alexander Kozlov and Primorye regional Gov. Oleg Kozhemyako were present at the ceremony, which featured a Russian military band playing both North Korean and Russian national anthems.
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It was Kim's longest foreign travel since he took power in late 2011. Observers said Kim was expected to return to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, around Monday afternoon.
Since entering Russia last Tuesday in his first overseas trip in more than four years, Kim had met President Vladimir Putin and visited key military and technology sites, underscoring the countries’ deepening defense cooperation in the face of separate, intensifying confrontations with the U.S. and its allies. Foreign officials and experts have said North Korea could provide badly needed munitions for Moscow’s war on Ukraine in exchange for sophisticated Russian weapons technology that would advance Kim’s nuclear ambitions.
North Korea may have tens of millions of aging artillery shells and rockets based on Soviet designs that could bolster Russian forces in Ukraine, analysts say, even though its old artillery systems have a reputation for poor accuracy. Both sides have been reportedly firing thousands of artillery rounds a day.
U.N. Security Council resolutions — which Russia, a permanent member, previously endorsed — ban North Korea from exporting or importing any arms. Observers say Russia’s alleged attempts to receive ammunitions and artillery shells from North Korea suggest Moscow’s desperation to refill its arsenal exhausted in the war with Ukraine.
Read: North Korean state media says Kim Jong Un discussed arms cooperation with Russian defense minister
“Military cooperation between North Korea and Russia is illegal and unjust as it contravenes U.N. Security Council resolutions and various other international sanctions,” South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said in written responses Sunday to questions from The Associated Press. “The international community will unite more tightly in response to such a move.”
In return for supplying conventional arms to Russia, experts say North Korea would seek Russian economic and food aid but also transfers of technologies to build powerful missiles, a nuclear-propelled submarine and a spy satellite. North Korea has publicly sought to introduce such high-tech weapons systems citing what it called intensifying U.S.-led hostilities.
Earlier Sunday, Kim was in a lighter mode, touring a university and watching a walrus show at a Russian aquarium. Russia’s state media released videos of Kim, accompanied by his top officials, talking with Russian officials through translators at the campus of the Far Eastern Federal University in Russky Island.
At the island’s Primorsky Aquarium, Russia’s largest, Kim watched performances featuring beluga whales, bottlenose dolphins, fur seals and “Misha” the walrus, which he seemed to particularly enjoy, according to Russian media.
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Kozhemyako, the Primorye governor, said a delegation from Russia’s Far East would visit North Korea. According to Russian state media, Kozhemyako said he’ll be part of the delegation that will travel with specialists from trade, tourism and agricultural sectors. The exact timing for the visit to North Korea hasn’t been announced.
On Saturday, Kim traveled to an airport near Vladivostok, where Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and other senior military officials gave him an up-close look at Russia’s strategic bombers and other warplanes. Kim and Shoigu later in the day went to Vladivostok, where they inspected the Admiral Shaposhnikov frigate.
On Friday, Kim visited an aircraft plant in the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur that produces Russia’s most powerful fighter jets.
The Russian warplanes shown to Kim on Saturday were among the types that have seen action in Ukraine, including the Tu-160, Tu-95 and Tu-22 bombers that have regularly launched cruise missiles. During Kim’s visit, Shoigu and Lt. Gen. Sergei Kobylash, the commander of the Russian long-range bomber force, confirmed for the first time that the Tu-160 had recently received new cruise missiles with a range of more than 6,500 kilometers (over 4,040 miles).
Shoigu, who had met Kim during a rare visit to North Korea in July, also showed Kim another of Russia’s latest missiles, the hypersonic Kinzhal, carried by the MiG-31 fighter jet, that saw its first combat during the war in Ukraine.
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North Korea’s state media reported that Kim and Shoigu talked about the regional security environment and exchanged views on “practical issues arising in further strengthening the strategic and tactical coordination, cooperation and mutual exchange between the armed forces of the two countries.”
Kim’s summit with Putin was held at Russia’s main space launch site, a location that pointed to his desire for Russian assistance in his efforts to acquire space-based reconnaissance assets and missile technologies. In recent months, two North Korean launches to send a spy satellite into space ended in failure, and the North vowed to conduct a third attempt in October.
During the meeting with Putin, Kim said his country would offer its “full and unconditional support” for Russia’s fight to defend its security interests, in an apparent reference to the war in Ukraine. Kim invited Putin to visit North Korea at “a convenient time,” and Putin accepted.
It was Kim’s second summit meeting with Putin. The previous meeting took place in Vladivostok in April 2019, two months after Kim’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with then U.S. President Donald Trump fell apart during their second summit in Vietnam.
Searchers look for more than 10,000 missing in flooded Libyan city where death toll eclipsed 11,000
Libyan authorities limited access to the flooded city of Derna on Friday to make it easier for searchers to dig through the mud and hollowed-out buildings for the more than 10,000 people still missing and presumed dead following a disaster that has already claimed more than 11,000 lives.
The staggering death toll could grow further due to the spread of waterborne diseases and shifting of explosive ordnance that was swept up when two dams collapsed early Monday and sent a wall of water gushing through the city, officials warned.
The disaster has brought some rare unity to oil-rich Libya, which after years of war and civil strife is divided between rival governments in the country’s east and west that are backed by various militia forces and international patrons. But the opposing governments have struggled to respond to the crisis, and recovery efforts have been hampered by confusion, difficulty getting aid to the hardest-hit areas, and the destruction of Derna's infrastructure, including several bridges.
Flooding death toll soars to 11,300 in Libya's coastal city of Derna, aid group says
Aid groups called on authorities to facilitate their access to the city so they can distribute badly needed food, clean water and medical supplies to survivors. Four days into the crisis, the lack of central oversight was apparent, with people receiving supplies and resources in some parts of Derna but being left to fend for themselves in others.
Manoelle Carton, the medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Libya, described waiting in line for hours to get into the city and, once inside, finding volunteers from around the country who had flocked to Derna getting in the way of humanitarian workers at times.
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“Everybody wants to help. But it is becoming chaotic,” she said. “There is an enormous need for coordination.”
Teams have buried bodies in mass graves outside the city and in nearby towns, Eastern Libya’s health minister, Othman Abduljaleel, said.
But officials worried that thousands more have yet to be found.
Bodies “are littering the streets, washing back up on shore and buried under collapsed buildings and debris,” said Bilal Sablouh, regional forensics manager for Africa at the International Committee of the Red Cross.
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“In just two hours, one of my colleagues counted over 200 bodies on the beach near Derna,” he said.
Divers are also searching the waters off the Mediterranean coastal city.
Carton said later Friday that most of the dead bodies had been cleared from the streets in the areas of the city the Doctors Without Borders team visited, but there were other grim signs, including that one of the three medical centers they went to was out of service “because almost all of the medical staff died." Thousands of people displaced by the flooding are staying in shelters or with friends or relatives, she said.
Adel Ayad, who survived the flood, recalled watching as the waters rose to the fourth floor of his building.
“The waves swept people away from the tops of buildings, and we could see people carried by floodwater,” he said. Among them were neighbors.
Salam al-Fergany, director general of the Ambulance and Emergency Service in eastern Libya, said late Thursday that residents would be evacuated from Derna and that only search-and-rescue teams would be allowed to enter. But there were no signs of such an evacuation on Friday.
Health officials warned that standing water opened the door to disease — but said there was no need to rush burials or put the dead in mass graves, as bodies usually do not pose a risk in such cases.
“You’ve got a lot of standing water. It doesn’t mean the dead bodies pose a risk, but it does mean that the water itself is contaminated by everything,” Dr. Margaret Harris, spokeswoman for the World Health Organization, told reporters in Geneva. “So you really have to focus on ensuring that people have have access to safe water.”
Imene Trabelsi, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, warned that another danger lurked in the mud: landmines and other explosives left behind by the country’s protracted conflict.
There are leftover explosives in Libya dating back to World War II, but most are from the civil conflict that began in 2011. Between 2011 and 2021, some 3,457 people were killed or wounded by landmines or other leftover explosive ordnance in Libya, according to the international Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor.
Even before the flooding, Trabelsi said the ability to detect and remove mines from areas was limited. After the floods, she said, explosive devices may have been swept to “new, undetected areas" where they could pose an immediate threat to search teams and a longer-term threat to civilians.
Carton echoed the concerns about an outbreak of water-related diseases in the city. Beyond that, she said, there is a “huge need in mental health support” among survivors, witnesses and medical workers.
According to the Libyan Red Crescent, there were 11,300 flooding deaths in Derna as of Thursday. Another 10,100 people were reported missing, though there was little hope many of them would be found alive, the aid group said. The storm also killed about 170 people elsewhere in the country.
Libyan media reported that dozens of Sudanese migrants were killed in the disaster. The country has become a major transit point for Middle Eastern and African migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to seek a better life in Europe.
Flooding often happens in Libya during the rainy season, but rarely with this much destruction. Scientists said the storm bore some of the hallmarks of climate change, and extremely warm sea water could have given the storm more energy and allowed it to move more slowly.
Officials have said that Libya's political chaos also contributed to the loss of life. Khalifa Othman, a Derna resident, said he blamed authorities for the extent of the disaster.
“My son, a doctor who graduated this year, my nephew and all his family, my grandchild, my daughter and her husband are all missing, and we are still searching for them,” Othman said. “All the people are upset and angry — there was no preparedness.”
Hurricane Lee targets New England and eastern Canada with wind, roiling seas and rain
Fishermen removed lobster traps from the water and residents hauled hundreds of boats ashore — leaving some harbors looking like ghost towns — while utility workers from as far away as Tennessee began taking up positions Friday ahead of Hurricane Lee’s heavy winds, high seas and rain that's expected to span hundreds of miles (kilometers) of land and sea.
The storm is projected to be more than 400 miles (640 kilometers) wide with tropical-storm-force winds when it reaches land, creating worries of power outages in Maine, the nation’s most heavily forested state, where the ground is saturated and trees are weakened from heavy summer rains.
Lee remained a hurricane with 80 mph (128 kph) winds at night as it headed toward New England and eastern Canada with 20-foot (6-meter) ocean swells, strong winds and rain. Forecasters said there would be winds topping 40 mph (64 kph) across the region, with peak winds reaching upward of 65 mph (104 kph), ahead of landfall expected Saturday afternoon .
There was little else to be done but wait and worry, and make final preparations as Lee spun about 300 miles (485 kilometers) southeast of Nantucket, Massachusetts.
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In Bar Harbor, there were only two lobster boats in the water compared with 20 to 25 on a normal day. Lobsterman Bruce Young said his 38-foot (12-meter) vessel was transported to the local airport, saying it’s better to be safe than sorry. “There’s going to be huge white rollers coming in on top of 50 to 60 mph winds. It’ll be quite entertaining,” he said.
On Long Island, commercial lobster fisherman Steve Train had just finished hauling 200 traps out of the water. Train, who is also a firefighter, was going to wait out the storm on the island in Casco Bay.
He was not concerned about staying there in the storm. “Not one bit,” he said.
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In South Thomaston, Dave Cousens, who lost fishing gear when Hurricane Bob came through in 1991, said lobstermen were busy moving their traps, which cost $100 to $170 apiece, out of harm’s way to try to avoid damage from the rough seas.
While landfall was projected for nearby Nova Scotia, the Category 1 system was big enough to cause concerns over a wide area even if it weakens to a tropical storm. Parts of coastal Maine could see waves up to 15 feet (4.5 meters) high crashing down, causing erosion and damage, and the strong gusts will cause power outages, said Louise Fode, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Maine. As much as 5 inches (12 centimeters) of rain was forecast for eastern Maine, where a flash flood watch was in effect.
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In Canada, Ian Hubbard, a meteorologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Canadian Hurricane Centre, said Lee won’t be anywhere near the severity of the remnants of Hurricane Fiona, which washed houses into the ocean, knocked out power to most of two provinces and swept a woman into the sea a year ago.
But it was still a dangerous storm. Kyle Leavitt, director of the New Brunswick Emergency Management Organization, urged residents to stay home, saying, “Nothing good can come from checking out the big waves and how strong the wind truly is.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was convening the incident response group, which meets only to discuss events with major implications for Canada, on Friday. Consisting of Cabinet ministers and senior officials, it was previously convened over events including the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the record wildfire season this year.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey joined Maine in declaring a state of emergency and asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency to issue a pre-disaster emergency declaration. She also activated up to 50 National Guard members to help with storm preparations, including operating highwater vehicles to respond to flooded areas.
The storm's arrival was expected just days after heavy flooding and tornadoes in New England.
“As we’ve seen in recent weeks, severe weather is not to be taken lightly. Flooding, wind damage, downed trees, tree limbs — all these things create real hazards and problems for people,” Healey said.
East Hampton, New York, barred swimming — and, in at least some places, even walking — on beaches because of dangerous surf. Caution tape was strung up along the edge of the sand at the tony second-home community’s picturesque Main Beach, where waves already were roiling Friday afternoon, News12 Long Island video showed.
In Rhode Island, Gov. Dan McKee said crews were working to secure the iconic 11-foot-tall (3.4-meter-tall) “Independent Man” statue atop the State House dome. Workers wanted to safeguard the 500-pound statue against the storm’s wind and rain after a drone recently captured footage showing damage to the base.
In Maine, where people are accustomed to damaging winter nor'easters, some brushed aside the coming Lee as something akin to those storms only without the snow.
“We fear nor’easters up here more than the remnants of a tropical storm," said Andrea Silverthorne, who works in reception and reservations at the Inn on the Wharf in Lubec, Maine's easternmost town.
Many tourists were caught up in the storm.
Kent Thomas and his wife Robin, from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, watched the weather reports closely before deciding to travel to Mount Desert Island, home to Acadia National Park. They're used to big storms back home, so they're going with the flow.
“We’ll hunker down like everyone else with the winds and the weather,” Kent Thomas said while visiting Bar Harbor. “We have a lot of experience with tropical storms and hurricanes in North Carolina. Power outages and tree damage go with the territory.”
Destructive hurricanes are relatively rare this far to the north. The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 brought gusts as high as 186 mph (300 kph) and sustained winds of 121 mph (195 kph) at Massachusetts’ Blue Hill Observatory. But there have been no storms that powerful in recent years.
The last storm to make landfall in New England as a hurricane was Bob, which tore across Cape Cod and charged northward toward Maine, losing steam and becoming a tropical storm, according to the National Weather Service.
The region learned the hard way with Hurricane Irene in 2011 that damage isn’t always confined to the coast. Downgraded to a tropical storm, Irene still caused more than $800 million in damage in Vermont.
For this storm, part of Maine was briefly under a hurricane watch for the first time since 2008, for Hurricane Kyle, which skirted eastern Maine. The last hurricane to make landfall in Maine was Hurricane Gerda, which hit Eastport in 1969.
Microban launches Ascera(TM): a patent-pending, cutting-edge antimicrobial technology inspired by nature
Microban International has introduced its latest ground-breaking technology – Ascera(TM).
This patent-pending, next generation antimicrobial technology uses an active ingredient inspired by nature*, and is designed for use in olefinic polymers and solvent-based coatings. Ascera is sustainable, metal free and less toxic than alternative technologies, and provides the lifelong antimicrobial product protection that Microban is known for around the world.
As the global leader in antimicrobial and odor-control technologies, Microban is committed to the development of solutions that support product sustainability by extending their useful lifetimes.
Ascera exemplifies the company’s commitment to sustainability by offering lasting product protection while maintaining critical attributes, such as ease of incorporation, safe handling, and good chemical, thermal and UV stability.
Ascera will perform for the product's expected lifetime when applied according to Microban's standards, effectively inhibiting the growth of odor-causing bacteria to prevent stains and premature aging of the finished product.
"Microban has always led the antimicrobial industry with technological innovations that contribute to product sustainability," said Dr. Souvik Nandi, Vice President of R&D at Microban International. "In the past decade, regulatory and environmental groups have put increasing pressure on many of the antimicrobial chemistries that are currently used.”
“As a result, Microban has invested significant resources in identifying naturally occurring solutions that are more sustainable and effective. We are very proud to roll out Ascera, which represents the culmination of many years of intensive research. This is the first of an exciting series of nature-inspired solutions that we will be launching in the next few years for different market segments and material types."
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Son of Aung Sang Suu Kyi is worried about her health in detention and about Myanmar's violent crisis
The younger son of ousted Myanmar leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi says he has always avoided talking to the media, but this time is different. He’s increasingly worried about his imprisoned 78-year-old mother’s health and about Myanmar's violent political crisis, which he calls desperate.
“I’d just really like to have some form of contact with her so that I know that she’s OK, because at the moment she has no access to her legal counsel,” Kim Aris said Wednesday in a video interview with The Associated Press from his home in London.
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“She has no access to her personal doctors. She’s not allowed any visitors, as far as I’m aware. She’s not even allowed to mingle with the other prisoners, which means she’s basically under a form of solitary confinement.”
Suu Kyi was arrested in 2021 when the army seized power from her democratically elected government. She has since been prosecuted and convicted on more than a dozen charges for offenses her supporters say were concocted to keep her out of politics. She is serving a prison term of 27 years.
The military takeover triggered massive public resistance that was brutally suppressed, triggering a bloody civil war that has killed thousands of people.
Aris, 46, said he has tried to keep out of the spotlight for decades, seeking to avoid any political activism and “just trying to keep my head down and get on with my family life.”
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"I’ve always tried to avoid speaking to the media and (have been) avoiding social media all my life. But the situation in Burma at the moment is absolutely desperate,” he said, referring to Myanmar by its former name. “The fact that I’ve not been allowed to communicate with my mother at all for over two and a half years now” is another reason he is speaking out, he said.
“So now I’m doing all I can to try and help the situation and bring awareness of this situation to the wider world,” he said. He is getting active on social media and said he plans a campaign to “bring awareness and funding for humanitarian purposes.”
Aris said he has heard that his mother has been extremely ill and has been suffering from gum problems and was unable to eat. “She was suffering from bouts of dizziness and vomiting and couldn’t walk at one stage.”
Aris said his information comes from independent Myanmar media and social media. Britain’s Foreign Office and the International Red Cross have tried and failed to learn more on his behalf, he said. He has tried reaching out to Myanmar’s military government, including its embassy in London, “but I don’t get any response from them. They wouldn’t even answer the door to me.”
It’s not the first time Suu Kyi has faced confinement. She spent nearly 15 years under house arrest under a previous military government starting in 1989, a year after co-founding her National League for Democracy party. But almost all of that time was at her family home in Yangon, the country’s biggest city, and she was not completely isolated.
“At that time, it was in her own home and she was allowed visitors. At times, I was allowed to spend time with her under house arrest. And we were allowed to send her care packages and letters and have communication with her. For the last two and a half years, we have had none of those basic human rights.”
Investigators say Myanmar's military is committing increasingly brazen war crimes
“I realize that there’s so many natural disasters and humanitarian crisis all over the world now, and it’s hard for everybody to be exposed to that every day. We all need to try and do our bit to try and help everywhere that we can. And Burma is one country where we can change things very easily,” Aris said.
“If only 2% of what has been given to the Ukrainian forces had been given to the resistance forces in Burma, the situation would be very different now,” he said. “So I hope that people around the world can rally and try and help the people in Burma so that we can end this needless bloodshed.”
North Korea's Kim vows full support for Moscow at a summit with Putin in Russia
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un vowed “full and unconditional support” for Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Wednesday as the two leaders isolated by the West held a summit that the U.S. warned could lead to a deal to supply ammunition for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
The meeting, which lasted over four hours at Russia’s spaceport in the Far East, underscores how the two countries' interests are aligning: Putin is believed to be seeking one of the few things impoverished North Korea has in abundance -– stockpiles of aging ammunition and rockets for Soviet-era weapons.
Such a request would mark a role reversal from the 1950-53 Korean War, when Moscow gave weapons to support Pyongyang’s invasion of South Korea — and in the decades that followed, when the Soviet Union sponsored North Korea.
Reporting on the meeting Thursday, North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said Kim invited Putin to visit North Korea at a “convenient time” and that Putin accepted with “pleasure and reaffirmed his will to invariably carry forward” the history of friendship between the nations.
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The decision to meet at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia’s most important launch center on its own soil, suggests Kim is seeking Russian help in developing military reconnaissance satellites. He has previously said that is crucial to enhancing the threat of his nuclear-capable missiles, and North Korea has repeatedly failed to put its first military spy satellite into orbit.
Putin met Kim’s limousine, brought from Pyongyang in the North Korean leader’s armored train, at the launch facility, greeting his guest with a handshake of about 40 seconds. Putin spoke of the Soviet Union’s wartime support for North Korea and said the talks would cover economic cooperation, humanitarian issues and the “situation in the region.”
Kim, in turn, pledged continued support for Moscow, making an apparent reference to the war in Ukraine.
“Russia is currently engaged in a just fight against hegemonic forces to defend its sovereign rights, security and interests,” he said.
North Korea may have tens of millions of aging artillery shells and rockets based on Soviet designs that could bolster Russian forces in Ukraine, analysts say.
Washington has accused North Korea of providing Russia with arms, including selling artillery shells to the Russian mercenary group Wagner. Russian and North Korean officials deny such claims.
But either buying arms from or providing rocket technology to North Korea would violate international sanctions that Russia has previously supported.
It would both underscore and deepen Russia’s isolation in the 18 months after its invasion of Ukraine drew increasing sanctions that have cut off Moscow’s economy from global markets and shrunk the circle of world leaders willing to meet with Putin. Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are also at their highest point in years as the pace of both Kim’s weapons demonstrations and the United States’ combined miliary exercises with South Korea have intensified. There are concerns the North would seek advanced weapons technologies from Russia that would increase the threat posed by Kim’s military nuclear program in exchange for fueling Putin’s war on Ukraine.
Jeon Ha Gyu, spokesperson of South Korea’s Defense Ministry, said Seoul was closely monitoring the diplomacy between Moscow and Pyongyang and urged Russia to “properly follow” U.N. Security Council resolutions.
When asked whether North Korean arms shipments to Russia would inspire Seoul to change its policy of limiting its support of Ukraine to non-lethal supplies, Jeon said “there’s no change in the government’s stance of not providing lethal weapons” to Kyiv.
North Korea's Kim is in Russia to meet Putin, as both are locked in standoffs with the West
Moscow's priority is success in Ukraine, “and it would do pretty much anything in order to achieve that,” said James Nixey, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House, a London-based think-tank.
“Russia possibly wants to settle in for a longer war, but it can’t meet the necessary industrial capacity," he said. In return, Pyongyang is likely to get food and missile technology from Moscow, “a relatively easy gift" for the Kremlin, Nixey said.
As the leaders toured a Soyuz-2 rocket launch facility on Wednesday, Kim peppered a Russian space official with questions.
Kim and Putin met together with their delegations and later one-on-one, said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. After the talks, there was an official lunch for Kim, Russian state media reported.
Kim has described space-based reconnaissance capabilities as crucial for enhancing the threat of nuclear-capable missiles designed to target the United States and its Asian allies, South Korea and Japan.
Following repeated failures, North Korea may want to launch a spy satellite on a Russian space launch vehicle, said Yang Uk, a military expert at South Korea’s Asian Institute for Policy Studies. He said North Korea could also ask Russia to build a more powerful spy satellite than the one it has been trying to launch.
“It’s possible that North Korea pushes to participate in the production process of the satellite, rather than just acquiring a finished product, to set up a natural transfer of technologies,” Yang said.
Putin told Russian state TV that Kim will visit two more cities in the Far East on his own after the summit, flying to Komsomolsk-on-Amur, where he will visit an aircraft plant, and then go to Vladivostok to view Russia’s Pacific Fleet, a university and other facilities.
Russia and North Korea have “lots of interesting projects” in spheres like transportation and agriculture, Putin said. Moscow is providing its neighbor with humanitarian aid, but there also are opportunities for “working as equals,” he added.
He dodged the issue, however, of military cooperation, saying only that Russia is abiding by the sanctions prohibiting procuring weapons from Pyongyang. “There are certain restrictions, Russia is following all of them. There are things we can talk about, we're discussing, thinking. Russia is a self-sufficient country, but there are things we can bring attention to, we're discussing them,” he said.
James O’Brien, head of the Office of Sanctions Coordination at the U.S. State Department, said Russia was “scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for help because it’s having trouble sustaining its military,”
A deal between the countries would violate existing sanctions, O'Brien said, and would trigger the U.S. to try to identify the individuals and the financial mechanisms used to “at least limit their ability to be effective."
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at a news conference that “any form of cooperation of any country with North Korea must respect the sanctions regime that was imposed by the Security Council.”
Wednesday's meeting came hours after North Korea fired two ballistic missiles toward the sea, extending a highly provocative run in testing since 2022, as Kim used the distraction caused by war in Ukraine to accelerate his weapons development.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said they landed in waters outside the country’s exclusive economic zones and there were no reports of damage.
Official photos showed Kim was accompanied by Pak Thae Song, chairman of North Korea’s space science and technology committee, and Adm. Kim Myong Sik, who are linked with efforts to acquire spy satellites and nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarines.
Kim also brought Jo Chun Ryong, who heads munitions policies and had joined him on tours of factories producing artillery shells and missiles.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said it was the first time the North launched a missile while Kim was abroad.
Kim could have ordered them to show he is in control of military activities even while outside the country, said Moon Seong Mook of the Seoul-based Korea Research Institute for National Strategy.
Asked whether Moscow will help North Korea build satellites, Putin was quoted by Russian media as saying “that’s why we have come here. The DPRK leader shows keen interest in rocket technology. They’re trying to develop space, too,” using the acronym for North Korea’s formal name. Asked about military cooperation, Putin said: “We will talk about all issues without a rush. There is time.”
North Korean leader Kim tours weapons factories and vows to advance his arms and his war readiness
Noting what he called the “laconic” official presentation of the summit's outcome, Alexander Vorontsov of the Russian Academy of Science’s Institute of Asian Studies was quoted as saying by the Tass news agency that "we can assume that ... most of the agreements reached ... will remain secret for the time being.”
At their lunch, which reportedly featured regional delicacies such as Kamchatka crab dumplings and taiga lingonberries with pine nuts, Kim said he and Putin agreed to deepen their “strategic and tactical cooperation.”
Kim Jong Un's trip to Russia provides window into unique North Korean and Russian media coverage
The world is largely relying on North Korean and Russian media for information about the unusual train journey of leader Kim Jong Un to meet with President Vladimir Putin at a space facility.
While news gathering is, to varying degrees, constrained by both authoritarian governments, the coverage by the countries' respective media this week is providing a window into the neighbors' unique news environments and how the summit is being presented to people in North Korea and Russia.
The coverage shown to North Koreans is meant, like all media efforts there, to reflect the government’s propaganda needs. The country's reporters have no higher aim than glorifying Kim for Koreans and the world.
But Kim’s trip to Russia, where foreign and local media have more access and leeway than in Pyongyang, has challenged how the North Korean media portray one of Kim’s most important diplomatic moves in years.
North Korea's Kim vows full support for Russia’s 'sacred fight' after viewing launchpads with Putin
There are no independent television channels left in Russia since Putin invaded Ukraine, and journalists for Russian state media follow the Kremlin’s line. Although social media is increasingly popular, most of Russia still gets its news from the powerful state television network, which encompasses multiple channels across 11 time zones.
Here, then, is a look at how people in both countries are getting information about a summit of two isolated leaders eager to thumb their noses at Washington and perhaps establish closer military ties with one another.
NORTH KOREA
A sure sign that big news has happened in North Korea is the appearance on state television of the Lady in Pink, as she’s sometimes called by outside observers because of her penchant for pink traditional Korean hanbok dresses.
Sure enough, Ri Chun Hi appeared on TV this week to present, in a booming voice resonant with emotion and pride, Kim’s departure from Pyongyang on his green and yellow armored train.
Ri is an institution in North Korea — Kim rewarded her with a luxury home for her decades of work. She appeared on TV to announce the death of Kim's father, Kim Jong Il, to describe Kim Jong Un’s summits with former U.S. President Donald Trump, and for coverage of big weapons tests over the years as the country built a nuclear program.
“Senior officials sincerely wished him good health and a successful foreign visit,” Ri declared Tuesday, as the broadcast showed still cuts of Kim walking past honor guards and shaking the hands of senior officials in a lavish sendoff at a Pyongyang train station.
North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency, meanwhile, has taken a circumspect approach to Kim's Russia visit. Even on a slow day, KCNA sometimes puts out dozens of dispatches, in Korean and English, chronicling Kim’s every move in public. For the Russia trip, however, there have only been a handful of carefully packaged stories, appearing sometimes a day after the events.
North Korea's Kim is in Russia to meet Putin, as both are locked in standoffs with the West
Reporting on Kim’s departure from Pyongyang, KCNA wrote in an English translation that the “Respected Comrade,” as he’s invariably described, ”wished the Pyongyang citizens and all other people of the country well-being and successes in their work as a token of his warm farewell to them” and then left the city ”amid a warm send-off.”
Kim’s arrival in the Russian border city of Khasan was later described in a longer story that carefully noted the honor guard, military band and envoys who welcomed him. He was said to have "extended best wishes to the president, government, army and people of the Russian Federation.”
Rodong Shinmun, North Korea’s official newspaper, which mainly targets a domestic audience, published about 20 photos on Tuesday and Wednesday showing Kim’s departure from Pyongyang and his arrival in Khasan.
North Korea is very serious about glorifying and maintaining the dignity of Kim, and the Russians have cooperated thus far, with Putin personally accompanying him on a tour of the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia's Far East.
The danger for North Korean media, however, is the unpredictable nature of a foreign summit. As much as it might want to, North Korea cannot control every aspect of what happens abroad.
Luckily, Kim seems to enjoy appearing in public on his rare travels outside his nation. In Singapore, for example, during the summit to meet Trump, he walked among crowds and toured skyscrapers.
And for anything that goes off script this time in Russia, North Korea's propaganda officers can always rely on the daylong delay in publishing the news so they can craft the appropriate narrative before presenting it to the people at home.
RUSSIA
Although Russian state television was rather muted Tuesday when Kim’s train rolled into Russia, TV channels broke into scheduled news reports Wednesday to show photos of Putin meeting Kim at the space launch facility.
Russian state TV typically covers Putin’s every public move, but instead of the usual images of Putin meeting regional officials or berating government ministers, viewers watched as Putin greeted Kim with a 40-second handshake and then toured Putin’s pet project, the cosmodrome.
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Before the visit, Russian state wire service RIA Novosti suggested that “the world is watching with bated breath,” accompanied by screenshots of headlines from around the globe. A pundit on a top Russian TV show could be seen questioning how the North Korean economy and political system is “so successful.”
Reporters from Russian state media get access to Putin and the Kremlin that no Western journalist could dream of, and it was through them that details of Kim and Putin’s meeting trickled out.
A state television news anchor told Russians that the leaders’ meeting lasted at least five hours, and Russian state wire service TASS reported on the menu for their working lunch -- dumplings with Kamchatka crab. But there was scant mention of the real reason for the visit. Analysts suspect Putin invited Kim to visit Russia to make a deal — North Korean weapons to fuel Putin’s war in Ukraine, in exchange for technology.
TV host Pavel Zarubin regularly gets up-close access to the Russian president, and Putin’s meeting with Kim was no exception. Zarubin posted a video on his Telegram channel Wednesday of Putin apparently waving goodbye to Kim while surrounded by multiple bodyguards. Putin was smiling and looked pleased; perhaps he got what he wanted from the visit.
Special mosquitoes are being bred to fight dengue. How the old enemies are now becoming allies
For decades, preventing dengue fever in Honduras has meant teaching people to fear mosquitoes and avoid their bites. Now, Hondurans are being educated about a potentially more effective way to control the disease — and it goes against everything they’ve learned.
Which explains why a dozen people cheered last month as Tegucigalpa resident Hector Enriquez held a glass jar filled with mosquitoes above his head, and then freed the buzzing insects into the air. Enriquez, a 52-year-old mason, had volunteered to help publicize a plan to suppress dengue by releasing millions of special mosquitoes in the Honduran capital.
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The mosquitoes Enriquez unleashed in his El Manchen neighborhood — an area rife with dengue — were bred by scientists to carry bacteria called Wolbachia that interrupt transmission of the disease. When these mosquitoes reproduce, they pass the bacteria to their offspring, reducing future outbreaks.
This emerging strategy for battling dengue was pioneered over the last decade by the nonprofit World Mosquito Program, and it is being tested in more than a dozen countries. With more than half the world's population at risk of contracting dengue, the World Health Organization is paying close attention to the mosquito releases in Honduras, and elsewhere, and it is poised to promote the strategy globally.
In Honduras, where 10,000 people are known to be sickened by dengue each year, Doctors Without Borders is partnering with the mosquito program over the next six months to release close to 9 million mosquitoes carrying the Wolbachia bacteria.
“There is a desperate need for new approaches,” said Scott O’Neill, founder of the mosquito program.
DENGUE DEFIES TYPICAL PREVENTION
Scientists have made great strides in recent decades in reducing the threat of infectious diseases, including mosquito-borne viruses like malaria. But dengue is the exception: Its rate of infection keeps going up.
Models estimate that around 400 million people across some 130 countries are infected each year with dengue. Mortality rates from dengue are low – an estimated 40,000 people die each year from it – but outbreaks can overwhelm health systems and force many people to miss work or school.
“When you come down with a case of dengue fever, it’s often akin to getting the worst case of influenza you can imagine,” said Conor McMeniman, a mosquito researcher at Johns Hopkins University. It’s commonly known as “breakbone fever” for a reason, McMeniman said.
Traditional methods of preventing mosquito-borne illnesses haven’t been nearly as effective against dengue.
The Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that most commonly spread dengue have been resistant to insecticides, which have fleeting results even in the best-case scenario. And because dengue virus comes in four different forms, it is harder to control through vaccines.
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Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are also a challenging foe because they are most active during the day – meaning that’s when they bite – so bed nets aren’t much help against them. Because these mosquitoes thrive in warm and wet environments, and in dense cities, climate change and urbanization are expected to make the fight against dengue even harder.
“We need better tools,” said Raman Velayudhan, a researcher from the WHO’s Global Neglected Tropical Diseases Program. “Wolbachia is definitely a long-term, sustainable solution.”
Velayudhan and other experts from the WHO plan to publish a recommendation as early as this month to promote further testing of the Wolbachia strategy in other parts of the world.
SCIENTISTS SURPRISED BY BACTERIA
The Wolbachia strategy has been decades in the making.
The bacteria exist naturally in about 60% of insect species, just not in the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
“We worked for years on this,” said O’Neill, 61, who with help from his students in Australia eventually figured out how to transfer the bacteria from fruit flies into Aedes aegypti mosquito embryos by using microscopic glass needles.
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Around 40 years ago, scientists aimed to use Wolbachia in a different way: to drive down mosquito populations. Because male mosquitoes carrying the bacteria only produce offspring with females that also have it, scientists would release infected male mosquitoes into the wild to breed with uninfected females, whose eggs would not hatch.
But along the way, O’Neill’s team made a surprising discovery: Mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia didn’t spread dengue — or other related diseases, including yellow fever, Zika and chikungunya.
And since infected females pass Wolbachia to their offspring, they will eventually “replace” a local mosquito population with one that carries the virus-blocking bacteria.
The replacement strategy has required a major shift in thinking about mosquito control, said Oliver Brady, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“Everything in the past has been about killing mosquitoes, or at the very least, preventing mosquitoes from biting humans,” Brady said.
Since O’Neill’s lab first tested the replacement strategy in Australia in 2011, the World Mosquito Program has run trials affecting 11 million people across 14 countries, including Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Fiji and Vietnam.
The results are promising. In 2019, a large-scale field trial in Indonesia showed a 76% drop in reported dengue cases after Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes were released.
Still, questions remain about whether the replacement strategy will be effective – and cost effective – on a global scale, O’Neill said. The three-year Tegucigalpa trial will cost $900,000, or roughly $10 per person that Doctors Without Borders expects it to protect.
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Scientists aren't yet sure how Wolbachia actually blocks viral transmission. And it isn’t clear whether the bacteria will work equally well against all strains of the virus, or if some strains might become resistant over time, said Bobby Reiner, a mosquito researcher at the University of Washington.
“It’s certainly not a one-and-done fix, forever guaranteed,” Reiner said.
SPECIAL MOSQUITOES BRED IN COLOMBIA
Many of the world’s mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia were hatched in a warehouse in Medellín, Colombia, where the World Mosquito Program runs a factory that breeds 30 million of them per week.
The factory imports dried mosquito eggs from different parts of the world to ensure the specially bred mosquitoes it eventually releases will have similar qualities to local populations, including resistance to insecticides, said Edgard Boquín, one of the Honduras project leaders working for Doctors Without Borders.
The dried eggs are placed in water with powdered food. Once they hatch, they are allowed to breed with the “mother colony” — a lineage that carries Wolbachia and is made up of more females than males.
A constant buzz fills the room where the insects mate in cube-shaped cages made of mosquito nets. Caretakers ensure they have the best diet: Males get sugared water, while females “bite” into pouches of human blood kept at 97 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius).
“We have the perfect conditions,” the factory’s coordinator, Marlene Salazar, said.
Once workers confirm that the new mosquitoes carry Wolbachia, their eggs are dried and filled into pill-like capsules to be sent off to release sites.
DOCTORS ENLIST HELP IN HONDURAS
The Doctors Without Borders team in Honduras recently went door-to-door in a hilly neighborhood of Tegucigalpa to enlist residents’ help in incubating mosquito eggs bred in the Medellin factory.
At half a dozen houses, they received permission to hang from tree branches glass jars containing water and a mosquito egg-filled capsule. After about 10 days, the mosquitoes would hatch and fly off.
That same day, a dozen young workers from Doctors Without Borders fanned out across Northern Tegucigalpa on motorcycles carrying jars of the already hatched dengue-fighting mosquitoes and, at designated sites, released thousands of them into the breeze.
Because community engagement is key to the program’s success, doctors and volunteers have spent the past six months educating neighborhood leaders, including influential gang members, to get their permission to work in areas under their control.
Some of the most common questions from the community were about whether Wolbachia would harm people or the environment. Workers explained that any bites from the special mosquitoes or their offspring were harmless.
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María Fernanda Marín, a 19-year-old student, works for Doctors without Borders in a facility where Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes are hatched for eventual release. She proudly shows neighbors a photo of her arm covered in bites to help earn their trust.
Lourdes Betancourt, 63, another volunteer with the Doctors Without Borders team, was at first suspicious of the new strategy. But Betancourt – who has been sickened by dengue several times -- now encourages her neighbors to let the “good mosquitoes” grow in their yards.
“I tell people not to be afraid, that this isn’t anything bad, to have trust,” Betancourt said. “They are going to bite you, but you won’t get dengue.”