The latest meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has drawn criticism from a wide range of voices in Washington DC. Some say it amounted to little more than reality television. Others complained it conferred legitimacy on a brutal dictator. But many in South Korea, where the summit was held, view the meeting positively, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Seoul.

…

The U.S. military says it has struck an al-Qaida leadership and training facility in northern Syria where attacks threatening Americans and others were being planned.

The U.S. Central Command said in a statement that the strike occurred on Sunday near the northern province of Aleppo.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-linked war monitor, said Monday that the strike killed eight members of the al-Qaida-linked Horas al-Din, which is Arabic for “Guardians of Religion.”

The Observatory says the dead included six commanders: two Algerians, two Tunisians, an Egyptian and a Syrian.

Al-Qaida-linked militants control wide parts of northern Syria, mostly in Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold in the war-torn country.

…

India spends billions of dollars on social welfare support for the poor but corruption, fraud and inefficiencies often prevent the benefits from reaching them. But now, the government is starting to transform the way it gets welfare to the poor by linking welfare programs to the world’s biggest biometric identity project under which more than one billion people have been given biometric cards. Anjana Pasricha reports on how residents of a rural hamlet in the northern Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh are benefiting after it switched from cash to digital payments.

…

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres took his global message urging immediate climate action to officials gathered in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, where production of hydrocarbons remains a key driver of the economy.
 
Guterres is calling on governments to stop building new coal plants by 2020, cut greenhouse emissions by 45% over the next decade and overhauling fossil fuel-driven economies with new technologies like solar and wind. The world, he said, is facing a grave climate emergency.''<br />
 <br />
In remarks at a summit in Abu Dhabi, he painted a grim picture of how rapidly climate change is advancing, saying it is outpacing efforts to address it.<br />
 <br />
 He lauded the Paris climate accord, but said even if its promises are fully met, the world still faces what he described as a catastrophic three-degree temperature rise by the end of the century.<br />
 <br />
Arctic permafrost is melting decades earlier than even worst-case scenarios, he said, threatening to unlock vast amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas.<br />
 <br />It is plain to me that we have no time to lose,” Guterres said. Sadly, it is not yet plain to all the decision makers that run our world.''<br />
 <br />
 He spoke at the opulent Emirates Palace, where Abu Dhabi was hosting a preparatory meeting for the U.N. Climate Action Summit in September. Guterres was expected to later take a helicopter ride to view Abu Dhabi's Noor solar power plant.<br />
 <br />
When asked, U.N. representatives said the lavish Abu Dhabi summit and his planned helicopter ride would be carbon neutral, meaning their effects would be balanced by efforts like planting trees and sequestering emissions. The U.N. says carbon dioxide emissions account for around 80% of global warming.<br />
 <br />
Guterres was in Abu Dhabi fresh off meetings with The Group of 20 leaders in Osaka, Japan. There, he appealed directly to heads of state of the world's main emitters to step up their efforts. The countries of the G-20 represent 80% of world emissions of greenhouse gases, he said.<br />
 <br />
At the G-20 meeting, 19 countries expressed their commitment to the Paris agreement, with the only the United States dissenting.<br />
 <br />
In 2017, President Donald Trump pledged to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement as soon as 2020, arguing it disadvantages American workers and taxpayers. Trump has also moved steadily to dismantle Obama administration efforts to rein in coal, oil and gas emissions. His position has been that these efforts also hurt the U.S. economy.<br />
 <br />
The secretary-general's special envoy for the climate summit, Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba, told The Associated Press it was disappointing that the U.S. has pulled out from the accord. However, he said there are many examples of efforts at the local and state level in the United States to combat climate change.<br />
 <br />I think it is very important to have all countries committing to this cause… even more when we are talking about the country of the importance and the size – not only in terms of the economy but also the emissions – of the United States,” he said.
 
Guterres is urging business leaders and politicians to come to the Climate Action Summit later this year with their plans ready to nearly halve greenhouse emissions by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2050.
 
He suggested taxing major carbon-emitting industries and polluters, ending the subsidization of oil and gas, and halting the building of all new coal plants by next year.
 
We are in a battle for our lives,'' he said.But it is a battle we can win.”

…

Tens of thousands of protesters rallied across Sudan on Sunday against the ruling generals, calling for a civilian government nearly three months after the army forced out the long-ruling autocrat Omar al-Bashir.

The mass protests, centered in the capital, Khartoum, were the first since a June 3 crackdown when security forces violently broke up a protest camp. In that confrontation, dozens were killed, with protest organizers saying the death toll was at least 128, while authorities claim it was 61, including three security personnel.

Sunday’s demonstrators gathered at several points across Khartoum and in the sister city of Omdurman, then marching to the homes of those killed in previous protests.

The protesters, some of them waving Sudanese flags, chanted “Civilian rule! Civilian rule!” and “Burhan’s council, just fall,” targeting Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the head of the military council. Security forces fired tear gas at the demonstrators.

Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, deputy head of the military council, said the generals want to reach an “urgent and comprehensive agreement with no exclusion. We in the military council are totally neutral. We are the guardians of the revolution. We do not want to be part of the dispute.”

The European Union and several Western countries have called on the generals to avoid bloodshed.

The June 3 raid followed the collapse of talks on a new government, whether it should be led by a civilian or soldier.

Ethiopia and the African Union have offered a plan for a civilian-majority body, which the generals say could be the basis for new negotiations.

…

Sometimes, modern problems require ancient solutions.  
 
A 1,400-year-old Peruvian water-diverting method could supply up to 40,000 Olympic-size swimming pools’ worth of water to present-day Lima each year, according to new research published in Nature Sustainability.
 
It’s one example of how indigenous methods could supplement existing modern infrastructure in water-scarce countries worldwide. 
 
More than a billion people across the world face water scarcity. Artificial reservoirs store rainwater and runoff for use during drier times, but reservoirs are costly, require years to plan and can still fail to meet water needs. Just last week, the reservoirs in Chennai, India, ran nearly dry, forcing its 4 million residents to rely on government water tankers.  
 

Peru’s capital, Lima, depends on water from rivers high in the Andes. It takes only a few days for water to flow down to Lima, so when the dry season begins in the mountains, the water supply rapidly vanishes. The city suffers water deficit of 43 million cubic meters during the dry season, which it alleviates with modern infrastructure such as artificial reservoirs. 
 

Artificial reservoirs aren’t the only solution, however. Over a thousand years ago, indigenous people developed another way of dealing with water shortages. Boris Ochoa-Tocachi, a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London and lead author of the study, saw firsthand one of the last remaining pre-Inca water-harvesting systems in the small highland community of Huamantanga, Peru. 

Water diverted, delayed
 
The 1,400-year-old system is designed to increase the water supply during the dry season by diverting and delaying water as it travels down from the mountains. This nature-based “green” infrastructure consists of stone canals that guide water from its source to a network of earthen canals, ponds, springs and rocky hillsides, which encourage water to seep into the ground. It then slowly trickles downhill through the soil and resurfaces in streams near the community.  
 
Ideally, the system should be able to increase the water’s travel time from days to months in order to provide water throughout the dry season, “but there was no evidence at all to quantify what is the water volume that they can harvest from these practices, or really if the practices were actually increasing the yields of these springs that they used during the dry season,” said Ochoa-Tocachi. 
 

To assess the system’s capabilities, the researchers measured how much it slowed the flow of water by injecting a dye tracer high upstream and noting when it resurfaced downstream. The water started to emerge two weeks later and continued flowing for eight months — a huge improvement over the hours or days it would normally take. 
 
“I think probably the most exciting result is that we actually confirmed that this system works,” Ochoa-Tocachi added. “It’s not only trusting that, yeah, we know that there are traditional practices, we know that indigenous knowledge is very useful. I think that we proved that it is still relevant today. It is still a tool that we can use and we can replicate to solve modern problems.” 

Considerable increase in supply
 
The researchers next considered how implementing a scaled-up version of the system could benefit Lima. Combining what they learned from the existing setup in Huamantanga with the physical characteristics of Lima’s surroundings, they estimated that the system could increase Lima’s dry-season water supply by 7.5% on average, and up to 33% at the beginning of the dry season. This amounts to nearly 100 million cubic meters of water per year — the equivalent of 40,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. 
 
Todd Gartner, director of the World Resources Institute Natural Infrastructure for Water project, noted that this study “takes what we often just talk about — that ‘green [infrastructure] is as good as grey’ — and it puts this into practice and does a lot of evaluation and monitoring and puts real numbers behind it.” 
 
Another benefit of the system is the cost. Ochoa-Tocachi estimated that building a series of canals similar to what exists in Huamantanga would cost 10 times less than building a reservoir of the same volume. He also noted that many highland societies elsewhere in the world have developed ways of diverting and delaying water in the past and could implement them today to supplement their more expensive modern counterparts. 
 
“I think there is a lot of potential in revaluing these water-harvesting practices that have a very long history,” Ochoa-Tocachi said. “There are a lot of these practices that still now could be rescued and could be replicated, even though probably the actual mechanics or the actual process is different than the one that we studied. But the concept of using indigenous knowledge for solving modern engineering problems, I think that is probably very valuable today.” 

…

Rest assured, British fans: Most baseball games are not like the one played Saturday in London, not even the crazy ones between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.  

Each team scored six runs in a first inning that lasted nearly an hour, with Aaron Hicks hitting the first European homer. Brett Gardner had a tiebreaking, two-run drive in the third, Aaron Judge went deep to cap a six-run fourth and the Yankees outlasted their rivals 17-13 in a game that stretched for 4 hours, 42 minutes — 3 minutes shy of the record for a nine-inning game. 

“Well, cricket takes like all weekend to play, right? So, I’m sure a lot of people are used to it,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “We should remind them there’s not 30 runs every game.” 

The game was played before a sellout crowd of 59,659 that included supporters from Britain, Beantown and the Big Apple plus royalty, and America’s national pastime seemed to make a positive impression on British fans. 

“I think we’re getting as good a reception as football has for the last couple years,” Yankees first baseman Luke Voit said.  

Great weather

The weather helped. It was a warm, picture-perfect day in often overcast London — baseball weather at its best, played on a midsummer’s eve with sunlight that seemed to never fade. 

Things American fans take for granted, like standing for the national anthem, or joshing rival fans without getting overly crude, struck many Brits in London Stadium as a refreshing change. 
 
“It’s brilliant, it’s amazing, it’s so American as well,” said Jack Lockwood, a 23-year-old who pitches and plays catcher in an amateur baseball league in the city of Sheffield. “I’ve been to hundreds of football (soccer) games and it’s just such a different atmosphere. I just like the American positivity.” 
 
Lockwood spent about six hours on a train to get to and from London for the game, but he considered the trip well worth it, even though his favorite team — the Los Angeles Dodgers — wasn’t playing. 
 
He said it would be impossible to have fans from two rival English soccer teams sit in the same stands — intermingled as Yankee and Red Sox fans were Saturday — without violent scenes. 
 
“You put two rival football teams’ fans in the same stands, you’ll get a fight,” he said. “In baseball, you can put the fans together and you can have a laugh with anyone.” 

British touches
 
There were some British touches at the game, like the roaming vendors selling Pimm’s cocktails and gin and tonics, but the focus was generally on typical American ballpark fare: hot dogs, nachos, burgers and beer. There were even supersized hot dogs, checking in at 2 feet long. 
 
“It’s the way the Americans do sports,” said pleased British fan Stuart Graham, 45. “The way they have the spectator in mind. You know, you’re sitting there and the man comes around with your beer and your hot dogs, and you can relax and enjoy the game. It’s really very different to what we’re used to.” 
 
He and Ian Muggridge bought the tickets months ago, spurred in part by the storied Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, which promised to bring top talent to the British capital. 
 
“Two big heavyweights of U.S. baseball, sort of like Manchester United playing Liverpool in the UK,” he said, referring to British soccer rivals. “Great spectacle to come and see.” 
 
He did find one disappointment to baseball in Britain: The hot dogs weren’t as good as the ones he’d enjoyed at an American park. 

Muggridge appreciated the mood in the park, with the playing of the U.S. and British national anthems before the game. 

‘Patriotic feel’
 
“I like the fact that it’s got quite a patriotic feel about it,” he said. “You don’t often get that in British sports. We tend to avoid that, whereas in America you just put it out there.” 
 
While many British fans only had to jump a Tube train to get to the park, thousands of American fans flew across the Atlantic at considerable expense to catch the historic games. 
 
Yankees fan Danielle McCauley of Clifton, N.J., built a weeklong British holiday around Saturday’s game.  
 
“It’s been fun. The whole thing has been really cool,” she said, although she found the crowd far less raucous than those she had been part of in Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park. Call it British reserve. 
 
“It’s quiet,” she said. “It’s the quietest sporting event I’ve ever been to.” 

…

Tens of thousands of people turned out for gay pride celebrations around the world on Saturday, including a boisterous party in Mexico and the first pride march in North Macedonia’s capital. 
 
Rainbow flags and umbrellas swayed and music pounded as the march along Mexico City’s Paseo de la Reforma avenue got underway, with couples, families and activists seeking to raise visibility for sexual diversity in the country.   
 
Same-sex civil unions have been legal in Mexico City since 2007, and gay marriage since 2009. A handful of Mexican states have also legalized same-sex unions, which are supposed to be recognized nationwide. But pride participants said Mexico has a long way to go in becoming a more tolerant and accepting place for LGBTQ individuals.  
 

“There’s a lot of machismo, a lot of ignorance still,” said Monica Nochebuena, who identifies as bisexual.  
 
Nochebuena, 28, attended the Mexico City march for the first time with her mother and sister on Saturday, wearing a shirt that said: “My mama already knows.” Her mother’s shirt read: “My daughter already told me.” 
 
Human rights activist Jose Luis Gutierrez, 43, said the march is about visibility, and rights, especially for Mexico’s vulnerable transgender population. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights says that poverty, exclusion and violence reduce life expectancy for trans women in the Americas to 35 years. 
 
In New York City, Friday marked the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, when a police raid on a gay bar in Manhattan led to a riot and days of demonstrations that morphed into a sustained LGBTQ liberation movement. The city’s huge Pride parade on Sunday will swing past the bar. 
 
Other LGBTQ celebrations took place from India to Europe, with more events planned for Sunday. 
 

In the North Macedonian capital of Skopje, U.S. Charge d’Affaires Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm attended the first pride march there in a festive and incident-free atmosphere despite a countermarch organized by religious and “pro-family” organizations. 
 
People from across Macedonia took part, along with marchers from neighboring Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia and other countries.  
 
“This year Skopje joined more than 70 Pride [marches] and the USA are very proud to be part of this,” Schweitzer-Bluhm told reporters. “There is a lot of progress here in North Macedonia but still a lot has to be done.” 

…

Thousands marched through Madrid on Saturday to ask the Spanish capital’s new mayor not to ditch ambitious traffic restrictions in the center only recently set up to improve air quality. 
 
“Madrid Central,” as it is called, was one of the measures that persuaded the European Commission not to take Spain to court last year over its bad air pollution in the capital and Barcelona, as it did with France, Germany and the United Kingdom. 
 
“Fewer cars, better air” and “The new city hall seriously harms your health” were the messages on banners as protesters walked through the city’s center in 40-degree-Celsius heat. 
 
The capital’s new conservative mayor, Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida, made ditching “Madrid Central” a priority during his campaign, saying it had done nothing to ease pollution and only caused a nuisance for locals. 
 
But since he has taken power as part of a coalition with center-right party Ciudadanos, city officials have toned this down, saying the government is merely seeking to reform a system that does not work properly, having mistakingly handed out some fines. 
 
When the system was launched in November, Madrid followed in the steps of other European cities such as London, Stockholm and Milan that have restricted traffic in their centers. 
 

But while in these cases drivers can pay to enter such zones, Madrid went a step further, banning many vehicles from accessing the center altogether and fining them if they did. 
 
These fines will be suspended from July 1 to the end of September as the new city hall team audits the system. 
 
For Beatriz Navarro, 44, a university biochemistry professor who took part in the march, the system is working fine. 
 
“It’s a small seed … among everything that has to be done to slow down climate change,” she said. 
 
In a statement, environmental group Ecologistas en Accion said “the levels of pollution from nitrogen dioxide (NO2) registered during May this year were lower than those of 2018 in all the [measuring] stations in the system.” 
 
“In 14 of the 24 stations [in Madrid], the value registered in May 2019 was the lowest in the last 10 years.” 

…

Mexico and the United States are scrambling to address rising numbers of immigrants arriving at their shared border. Mexican border guards are stepping up raids against immigrants traveling north. In the United States, an uproar over the treatment of children in U.S. detention facilities led American lawmakers to approve a $4.6 billion emergency bill. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni has more.

…

Mexico and the United States are scrambling to address rising numbers of immigrants arriving at their shared border. Mexican border guards are stepping up raids against immigrants traveling north. In the United States, an uproar over the treatment of children in U.S. detention facilities led American lawmakers to approve a $4.6 billion emergency bill. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni has more.

…

A group of New York bikers has set out to save the environment by starting a bike-powered composting service. They collect food waste from restaurants and households for composting, and then use that compost as fertilizer to grow vegetables. In a city with a population of 8.5 million people, this might seem like a drop in the bucket, but while the scope might be small now, the organizers have big  and green  plans for the project. Nina Vishneva has the story narrated by Anna Rice.

…

A group of New York bikers has set out to save the environment by starting a bike-powered composting service. They collect food waste from restaurants and households for composting, and then use that compost as fertilizer to grow vegetables. In a city with a population of 8.5 million people, this might seem like a drop in the bucket, but while the scope might be small now, the organizers have big  and green  plans for the project. Nina Vishneva has the story narrated by Anna Rice.

…

The desktop personal computer changed the world when it was introduced back in the 1970s. But lately laptops and phones have slowly eaten away at that market. But the creators of a new PC that costs less than a trip to the grocery store are hoping their little PC can change that. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.

…

Bahrain on Friday summoned an Iraqi diplomat in the kingdom over an attack the previous evening on its embassy in Baghdad, condemning the protesters who stormed the mission and urging Iraqi authorities to protect the diplomatic compound, Bahrain’s state-run news agency reported.

According to the report, the Iraqi diplomat was told the attack by Iraqi protesters on the Bahraini Embassy in Baghdad was “an irresponsible behavior that is strongly rejected.”

The attack, apparently carried out by supporters of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, is unlikely to mar relations between Iraq and Gulf Arab nations, which have steadily been improving since Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi took office.

Also, Iraqi President Barham Saleh received a call Friday from the king of Bahrain. King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa praised the relations between the two counties and ways of “boosting them, for the good of the two peoples,” Saleh’s office said.

Protesters Storm Bahraini Embassy in Baghdad

They were demonstrating against a conference held in the Persian Gulf nation to promote peace between Arabs and Israelis

The embassy attack sought to denounce a conference held in Bahrain to promote peace between Arabs and Israelis. The protesters broke through the main gate, took down Bahrain’s flag and replaced it with a Palestinian one.

No one was hurt in the incident. Iraqi security officials said 54 people have been detained for taking part in the attack.

Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry said those behind the assault “should be brought to justice.”

An Iraqi security official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said precautionary measures have been taken in Baghdad to protect diplomatic missions. Bahrain’s flag was raised again at the embassy on Friday.

Iraq is home to Iran-backed militias and the embassy attack comes amid tensions between the United States and Iran. Iraq has close relations with both Washington and Tehran and has been trying to ease tensions between them.

The crisis gripping the Mideast stems from President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the U.S. last year from the nuclear deal between Iran and other world powers and his imposing of crippling new sanctions on Tehran.

…

The Holy See on Friday instructed Catholic clergy in China to profess loyalty to Catholic doctrine when signing a document, required by a new Chinese law, which obliges them to accept the principle of a state-sanctioned Catholic church that doesn’t recognize supreme papal authority to appoint bishops.

China’s estimated 12 million Catholics are split between those belonging to the official church and an underground church loyal to the pope.

Pope Francis is seeking to heal decades of estrangement between the Vatican and China’s Communist authorities. Beijing has insisted it, and not the pope, has final say over appointment bishops.

Friday’s guidelines noted that many Catholic pastors are “deeply disturbed” by China’s insistence that bishops and priests civilly register in order to carry out pastoral duties and that some had asked the Holy See to indicate a “concrete” approach to their dilemma.

But the Vatican guidelines also recognize some of the clergy loyal to the pontiff don’t want to register at all, saying, “the Holy See does not intend to force anyone’s conscience.”

”On the other hand, it considers that the experience of being clandestine is not a normal feature of the church’s life and that history has shown that pastors and faithful have recourse to it only amid suffering, in the desire to maintain the integrity of their faith.”

So the guidelines spell out how priests and bishops can register while making plain their loyalty to the Vatican doctrine. According to the Vatican, the registration almost always requires declaring “acceptance, among other things, of the principle of independence, autonomy and self-administration” of the church in China.

The Vatican instructed clergy to specify in writing, or, when that’s not possible, orally, preferably before a witness, that despite registering, they remain “faithful to the principles of Catholic doctrine.”

Some conservative Roman Catholic prelates have criticized Francis’ drive to resolve the Chinese dilemma in general. They insist that strict loyalty to Rome, even at the price of imprisonment and other persecution, is the only possible approach.

In past decades, many bishops and priests were imprisoned for years by Chinese authorities in retaliation for their unwavering support for the Vatican.

But the guidelines stressed recent “consolidated dialogue” between Beijing and the Vatican, asserting that current relations differ from the tensions of the 1950s, when Communist authorities sanctioned the so-called official Patriotic Church for Chinese Catholics.

…

The U.N. migration agency says migrant children have died or gone missing at the rate of nearly one per day worldwide over the past five years, with treacherous journeys like those across the Mediterranean or the U.S.-Mexico border continuing to take lives.

In its latest “Fatal Journeys” report, the International Organization for Migration has released findings that some 1,600 children – some as young as 6 months old – are among the 32,000 people who have perished in dangerous travels since 2014.
 

Deaths of Father, Daughter at US Border Highlight Migrants’ Plight

Family had been waiting in Mexico for a chance to apply for US asylum, but migrants there face long wait times

The Mediterranean remains the most fatal crossing, with over 17,900 people dying there –many on the hazardous trip between Libya and Italy.
 
The IOM also pointed to rising deaths every year along the U.S.-Mexico border since 2014, totaling more than 1,900 over five years.

…

Video games aren’t just for fun — they can also be used to fight disease, new research shows.

Scientists combined video games and computer models to show that the spread of a deadly pig disease can be slowed if farmers avoid risky behaviors. The authors say insights from the video games could be used to encourage people to follow rules, in the swine industry and beyond.

Since its emergence 40 years ago, porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) has swept through pig farms in Europe, Asia and North America. When PEDV erupted in the U.S. in 2013, it wiped out 7 million pigs. “A thimbleful of this virus could infect every single pig in the United States,” said Scott Merrill, a professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Science at the University of Vermont who was second author on the study.

PEDV is especially harmful to young pigs.

“More than 90 percent of [infected] piglets would die,” said lead author Gabriela Bucini, a postdoctoral researcher.

Merrill added, “We’ve seen and had discussions where people decided that they’re not going to work in the industry anymore because of PEDV, because it was just really hard to see this many animals get sick and die.”

While PEDV remains a threat to U.S. pig populations, its incidence has dropped since 2013. The researchers attributed the decline to a change in how farmers and other members of the production pipeline implemented safety protocols, such as disinfecting vehicles, clothing and footwear that could transmit infection between farms.

It’s clear that those protocols play an important part in preventing the spread of swine diseases, but until now there hasn’t been a way to measure just how important.

Virtual pig farms

Bucini and her team used video games to tackle this problem.

In one game, players assume the role of pig farmers and try to complete tasks while preventing their pigs from being infected with a contagious virus. As they complete the tasks, players are reminded of the risk of infection and are given the option to obey or ignore safety protocols like disinfecting clothing when entering and exiting buildings. Complying with safety protocols decreases the odds of infection, but uses up valuable time.

The games provided insight into how people behave in the real world, which the researchers incorporated into a model of PEDV transmission to track how the disease would spread — and learn how best to contain it. One of the key variables was the number of farmers who avoided risk by following the recommended safety protocols.

“We did find that by nudging or shifting the population of producers toward more risk-averse positions, the disease was more under control,” Bucini said.

Even a small change could have a big effect.

The model showed that nudging just 10 percent of risk-tolerant farmers away from risky behaviors decreased the number of PEDV cases by 19 percent. However, in order to substantially slow the spread of the disease, more than 40 percent of risk-tolerant farmers needed to change their ways. 

Steve Dritz, a swine specialist and professor in Kansas State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine who was not involved in the study, expressed hope that the model could be used to prevent the spread of future livestock disease outbreaks.

“It’s a wonderful tool for when … you’re trying to figure out, ‘What are the factors that I can control to keep incursions of disease out that I’ve never seen before?'” he said.

From pigs to people

The implications of the findings extend beyond pig farming to any situation where people need to follow rules to avoid negative consequences. Using their video games, the researchers found that changing how they presented the consequences of rule-breaking influenced the likelihood that people would follow the rules — even if the consequences themselves didn’t change.

For example, conveying the risk of infection with a colorful dial rather than with percentages caused a dramatic jump in the number of game players choosing to take the time to disinfect their clothing when entering and exiting farm buildings, from 30 to 82 percent.

Merrill explained the significance of this finding using a basic hygiene practice: “If you’re getting 30 percent of the people washing their hands versus 82 percent of the people washing their hands, that can be a huge difference in how quickly and how far any sort of disease spreads.”

The research was published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science. 

…

Video games aren’t just for fun — they can also be used to fight disease, new research shows.

Scientists combined video games and computer models to show that the spread of a deadly pig disease can be slowed if farmers avoid risky behaviors. The authors say insights from the video games could be used to encourage people to follow rules, in the swine industry and beyond.

Since its emergence 40 years ago, porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) has swept through pig farms in Europe, Asia and North America. When PEDV erupted in the U.S. in 2013, it wiped out 7 million pigs. “A thimbleful of this virus could infect every single pig in the United States,” said Scott Merrill, a professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Science at the University of Vermont who was second author on the study.

PEDV is especially harmful to young pigs.

“More than 90 percent of [infected] piglets would die,” said lead author Gabriela Bucini, a postdoctoral researcher.

Merrill added, “We’ve seen and had discussions where people decided that they’re not going to work in the industry anymore because of PEDV, because it was just really hard to see this many animals get sick and die.”

While PEDV remains a threat to U.S. pig populations, its incidence has dropped since 2013. The researchers attributed the decline to a change in how farmers and other members of the production pipeline implemented safety protocols, such as disinfecting vehicles, clothing and footwear that could transmit infection between farms.

It’s clear that those protocols play an important part in preventing the spread of swine diseases, but until now there hasn’t been a way to measure just how important.

Virtual pig farms

Bucini and her team used video games to tackle this problem.

In one game, players assume the role of pig farmers and try to complete tasks while preventing their pigs from being infected with a contagious virus. As they complete the tasks, players are reminded of the risk of infection and are given the option to obey or ignore safety protocols like disinfecting clothing when entering and exiting buildings. Complying with safety protocols decreases the odds of infection, but uses up valuable time.

The games provided insight into how people behave in the real world, which the researchers incorporated into a model of PEDV transmission to track how the disease would spread — and learn how best to contain it. One of the key variables was the number of farmers who avoided risk by following the recommended safety protocols.

“We did find that by nudging or shifting the population of producers toward more risk-averse positions, the disease was more under control,” Bucini said.

Even a small change could have a big effect.

The model showed that nudging just 10 percent of risk-tolerant farmers away from risky behaviors decreased the number of PEDV cases by 19 percent. However, in order to substantially slow the spread of the disease, more than 40 percent of risk-tolerant farmers needed to change their ways. 

Steve Dritz, a swine specialist and professor in Kansas State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine who was not involved in the study, expressed hope that the model could be used to prevent the spread of future livestock disease outbreaks.

“It’s a wonderful tool for when … you’re trying to figure out, ‘What are the factors that I can control to keep incursions of disease out that I’ve never seen before?'” he said.

From pigs to people

The implications of the findings extend beyond pig farming to any situation where people need to follow rules to avoid negative consequences. Using their video games, the researchers found that changing how they presented the consequences of rule-breaking influenced the likelihood that people would follow the rules — even if the consequences themselves didn’t change.

For example, conveying the risk of infection with a colorful dial rather than with percentages caused a dramatic jump in the number of game players choosing to take the time to disinfect their clothing when entering and exiting farm buildings, from 30 to 82 percent.

Merrill explained the significance of this finding using a basic hygiene practice: “If you’re getting 30 percent of the people washing their hands versus 82 percent of the people washing their hands, that can be a huge difference in how quickly and how far any sort of disease spreads.”

The research was published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science. 

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Separatists in Cameroon’s restive English-speaking regions have freed a prominent Catholic archbishop they kidnapped Tuesday. 

Archbishop Cornelius Fontem Esua says he was abducted by separatist fighters in a locality called Njinikejem while on a trip to preach peace in regions where a separatist war has raged for the past two years.

“The road was blocked,” he said. “I stood there for sometime, some boys came in and said, ‘No, you cannot go, you should go back.’ They gave me the number of a certain general [commander of separatist fighters]. They called and said, ‘Let me talk to him.’ He said, ‘No, you cannot pass, it has been blocked.’ I came down, I removed the barrier and I passed. The boys came, about 5 or 6 of them very aggressively shouting, ‘Who do you think you are,’ mishandled my driver. ‘No, we are taking you to our camp.'”

Esua says he was taken to the bush with four of his companions. He says they were not physically assaulted while in captivity.

The archbishop says he told the hundreds of youths and the man who called himself the general commanding separatist forces in the area that they should stop killing, maiming and abducting people whom they say they are trying to liberate.

“I told them, ‘You are making people to suffer.’ I said we cannot achieve anything good with evil. Thou shall not kill, thou shall not make other people to suffer. People whom you pretend to be fighting for are suffering. I told them a lot about education. Get the schools open,” he said.

Esua says they listened to him, and replied that they were fighting to save their land and people. He says he was asked to leave after more than 13 hours in captivity; he did not say if a ransom was paid for his release.

Previous abductions

It was not the first time clergy have been abducted by the English-speaking separatists, who want to break away from Cameroon’s French-speaking majority. 

The Catholic Church says dozens of its nuns and priests have been kidnapped and released.  Many believe the church paid to secure their release, an allegation the church denies. 

Security analyst Eugene Ongbwa, a consultant with Cameroon’s NGO Ecumenical Service For Peace, says the separatists have not been killing priests because the Catholic Church has preached against abuses by the government, and has called on the central government to listen to the fighters.

When the crisis began, separatist fighters kidnapped and killed missionaries and foreign workers to put pressure on the international community to force the government of Cameroon to grant their requests, Ongbwa said, adding that separatists seem to have dropped that option. The archbishop’s life may have been spared because he has been neutral, though vocal, about the need for the government to listen to the separatists, Ongbwa said.

The Catholic Church says at least nine clergy members have been killed, including American-born Charles Wesco, who died in Bamenda in crossfire with separatist fighters, and Kenyan-born Cosmas Omboto Ondari, who was shot in the southwestern town of Mamfe in a crossfire incident last November.

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Kenyan activists are celebrating after a Chinese-backed plan to build East Africa’s first coal-fired power plant near the World Heritage site island town of Lamu has again been halted.  Ruud Elmendorp reports from Lamu on the continuing controversy. 

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Kenyan activists are celebrating after a Chinese-backed plan to build East Africa’s first coal-fired power plant near the World Heritage site island town of Lamu has again been halted.  Ruud Elmendorp reports from Lamu on the continuing controversy. 

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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Wednesday security forces had foiled an opposition coup attempt that included plans to assassinate him and other top political figures and install a jailed former military officer as president.

A catastrophic economic collapse in the South American nation has fueled malnutrition and disease, prompting an exodus of the population toward Mexico and the United States. The armed forces have continued to side with the ruling Socialist Party despite calls by opposition leader Juan Guaido to disavow Maduro.

“We have revealed, dismantled and captured a fascist band of terrorists that planned a coup against Venezuelan society and Venezuelan democracy,” said Maduro in an evening broadcast.

“They are captured, behind bars, with clear evidence after following this group of criminals and fascists.”

The plan allegedly involved an attack on the headquarters of the Sebin intelligence agency to release Gen. Raul Baduel, a former defense minister who was arrested on corruption accusations in 2009 after falling out with the Socialist Party.

 Maduro said the plan involved Guaido as well as political leaders from Chile, Colombia and the United States.

Guaido dismissed the accusations as lies. Maduro’s critics accuse him of fabricating plots for political effect based on coerced testimony of arrested suspects.

Guaido, who in January invoked the constitution to assume a rival presidency, called on the armed forces in April to disavow Maduro in an uprising.

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A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that new U.S. sanctions against Iran mark a permanent end to a diplomatic path for resolving tensions between the two countries.

“Imposing fruitless sanctions on Iran’s leadership and the chief of Iranian diplomacy mean the permanent closure of the road of diplomacy with the frustrated U.S. administration,” Abbas Mousavi wrote on Twitter.

He added that U.S. President Donald Trump’s approach is “destroying the established international mechanisms for maintaining world peace and security.”

The comments follow Trump’s move to impose what he called “hard-hitting” new financial sanctions against Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and eight senior commanders in the Iranian military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Trump signed an executive order Monday he said would curb access that Khamenei and Iran would have to world financial markets. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the action would “literally” lock up “tens and tens of billions of dollars” of Iranian assets.

Mnuchin also said the United States could also target Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, one of Tehran’s best known figures on the world stage, with sanctions in the coming days.

Trump called his order a “strong and proportionate” American response to Tehran’s shoot-down last week of an unmanned U.S. drone, which Washington says occurred in international airspace near the Strait of Hormuz and Iran claims occurred over its airspace.

The U.S. leader said he imposed the sanctions because of a series of “belligerent acts” carried out by Iran, which U.S. officials say include Iran’s targeting of Norwegian and Japanese ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz with mine explosions days before the attack on the drone.

The executive order is aimed at pushing Tehran back to one-on-one talks with the U.S. over its nuclear weapons program after Trump last year withdrew from the 2015 international pact restraining Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump called the international deal negotiated by his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, “a disaster.”

“We’d love to be able to negotiate a deal,” Trump said.

But he declared, “Never can Iran have a nuclear weapon,” adding, “They sponsor terrorism like no one’s seen before.”

He said, “I look forward to the day when sanctions can be lifted and Iran can be a peace-loving nation. The people of Iran are great people.”

Mnuchin said earlier sanctions imposed when Trump pulled out of the international agreement have been “highly effective in locking up the Iranian economy.”

He said some of the sanctions Trump imposed Monday had been “in the works” before the drone was shot down, and some were being imposed because of the attack on the drone.

The Treasury Department headed by Mnuchin said that any foreign financial institution that engages in a “significant financial transaction” with the Iranians targeted by the sanctions could be cut off from U.S. financial deals.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described the new sanctions as “significant” as he left Washington on Sunday for a trip to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to continue the Trump administration’s effort to build a coalition of allies to counter Iran. Pompeo met Monday with Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“The world should know,” Pompeo said, “that we will continue to make sure it’s understood that this effort that we’ve engaged in to deny Iran the resources to foment terror, to build out their nuclear weapon system, to build out their missile program, we are going to deny them the resources they need to do that thereby keeping American interests and American people safe all around the world.”

Iran has defended its missile work as legal and necessary for its defense. Tehran has sought support from the remaining signatories to the 2015 agreement to provide the economic relief it wants, especially with its key oil exports as the U.S. has tightened sanctions in an attempt to cut off Iranian oil shipments.

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