WHO says Covid origin investigation is being 'poisoned by politics'

Rich Mendez 


A top WHO official said Friday that investigations into the origins of Covid-19 are being "poisoned by politics."

The WHO has been repeatedly accused of allowing the Chinese government to avoid a thorough investigation into the origins of Covid-19.

U.S. health officials continue to maintain that the virus likely has zoonotic, or animal, origins.

© Provided by CNBC Executive Director of the World Health Organization's (WHO) emergencies program Mike Ryan speaks at a news conference on the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Geneva, Switzerland.

A top World Health Organization official said Friday that investigations into the origins of Covid-19 are being "poisoned by politics."

U.S. President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he's ordered intelligence agencies to conduct "a report on their most up-to-date analysis of the origins of Covid-19, including whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident."

The WHO has come under increasing pressure in recent days from U.S. and European officials to take another look at whether the coronavirus could have escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, after a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report came to light, revealing that three researchers sought hospital care after falling ill with Covid-like symptoms in November 2019.

Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's Health Emergencies Program, asked if countries could separate the politics from the science.

"Putting WHO in a position like it has been put in is very unfair to the science we're trying to carry out, and it puts us as an organization, frankly, in an impossible position to deliver the answers that the world wants," Ryan said at a news briefing.

The WHO has been repeatedly accused of allowing the Chinese government to avoid a thorough investigation into the origins of Covid-19, which was first discovered in Wuhan in late 2019. At a Senate hearing earlier this week Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., pressed White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci on the WHO's close ties to China.

"Can we agree that if you took (Chinese) President Xi Jinping and turned him upside down and shook him, the World Health Organization would fall out of his pocket?" Fauci responded by saying that he has no way of knowing China's influence on the agency.

The hypothesis that Covid-19 came from a Wuhan virology lab was initially dismissed as a right-wing conspiracy theory, but it's been gaining traction in recent weeks.

The majority of the intelligence community believes that it is equally plausible that the virus originated in a lab and in an animal. Federal health officials continue to maintain their position that it is more likely that the virus has zoonotic origins. The CDC's website still states "we know that it originally came from an animal, likely a bat."

WHO chief concedes 'slow' response to Congo sex abuse claims


LONDON (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization acknowledged the U.N. health agency's response to sexual abuse allegations involving employees who worked in Congo during an Ebola outbreak was “slow,” following an Associated Press investigation that found senior WHO management knew of multiple cases of misconduct

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

As the WHO’s highest decision-making body meets this week, countries were tackling subjects like how to reform the U.N. health agency's emergencies program after its missteps in responding to the coronavirus pandemic. At its week-long meeting of countries, the WHO held a roundtable talk on preventing sexual abuse on Friday.

“In many ways, we're all to blame for what happens in these situations,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, the WHO's emergencies chief.

Diplomats have already pressed WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on the issue behind closed-doors. At least six countries raised concerns last week about how the agency was handling sexual abuse and exploitation, citing recent press reports. Tedros tried to allay their worries.

“I can understand the frustration,” he told a committee meeting of the WHO’s Executive Board on May 19. According to a recording of the meeting obtained by the AP, the director-general said it took time to deal with security problems in Congo, to install a commission to investigate sex abuse claims and to get the group up and running.

“The way this thing was run until now, although it was slow ... I hope it will satisfy,” Tedros said.

The WHO's press office declined to comment on Tedros’ description of a slow response but said the commission was "committed to conducting a comprehensive investigation into all recent allegations, including those relating to management actions.” The group's co-chairs were asked to sign a confidentiality agreement with the WHO.

The panel commissioned by the WHO does not include any law enforcement agencies to investigate if any of the reported sexual exploitation was criminal and its reports will be submitted only to the WHO.

Tedros created the panel in October, after news reports surfaced about sex abuse during the WHO’s efforts to contain the Ebola epidemic in Congo from 2018 to 2020. At the time, Tedros said he was “outraged” and would move quickly to punish those responsible.

But more than seven months later, the panel has yet to publicly release any details about its work or findings. The commission began its work in Congo on May 3 and expects to publish a report at the end of August, the group said.

Many countries said they expected more action, alluding to the AP’s recent story. Nearly 50 countries issued a joint statement Friday expressing their “deep concerns” about the WHO's handling of sexual abuse.

“We expressed alarm at the suggestions in the media that WHO management knew of reported cases of sexual exploitation and abuse, and sexual harassment and had failed to report them, as required by U.N. and WHO protocol, as well as at allegations that WHO staff acted to suppress the cases,” the joint statement said.

The United States, addressing the assembly Friday, urged other countries to hold the WHO accountable for its management of sex abuse claims; Canada, Australia, Britain, New Zealand and Mexico were among the countries that signed the statement.

Simon Manley, Britain's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, called for the WHO to reconsider issues including whether the U.N.'s internal oversight office should be involved in probing sex abuse claims and to clearly explain what the process would be for sharing its investigation results with member countries. Manley said earlier reports “lacked detail” and should have been shared earlier.

“We must from now on see much more transparency from the WHO,” he said.

An AP investigation published earlier this month found members of the WHO's senior management were told of sexual abuse concerns in 2019 involving at least two doctors employed by the agency during the Ebola epidemic in Congo.

The AP obtained a notarized contract showing two WHO staff members signed off on an agreement by Dr. Jean-Paul Ngandu to pay off a young woman he reportedly impregnated. Another doctor, Boubacar Diallo, bragged of his relationship with WHO chief Tedros and offered women jobs in exchange for sex, three women told the AP.

Even some WHO staffers appear unsatisfied at how the agency has handled the claims.

“We cannot afford to ignore signs of repeated, systemic failure of our Organization to prevent such alleged behaviors and to address them in a just and timely manner,” the WHO staff committee wrote in an email to staff and senior management last week. The committee urged WHO directors to take immediate action over the allegations, including reports that “senior management may have suppressed concerns.”

Some countries told the WHO’s top leadership during last week’s closed meetings they expected more details quickly.

“Now that WHO is considered a beacon to help us find our way out of this pandemic, it is so disheartening to learn about allegations of structural mishandling of cases of misconduct,” a representative of the Dutch government said, according to a meeting recording. “Reading the (press) articles made us doubt whether the many statements and discussions we have had (at the WHO about sex abuse) have been truly heard.”

The representative from the Netherlands called for more transparency to address “the gap in trust that is starting to emerge in this area.”

Dr. Catherine Boehme, Tedros’ Cabinet chief, responded that “some issues are still a work in progress.” She said WHO officials would soon meet with the commission investigating the Congo sex abuse allegations to discuss “the investigation around failure to report or active suppression, including the allegation of a cover-up.”

“We know there are weaknesses in the system, whether it’s the WHO or the U.N. system,” added Dr. Ibrahima Soce Fall, the WHO's assistant director-general for emergency response.

Some experts said the WHO’s failure to quickly punish those involved in sexual misconduct was disappointing, but not surprising.

“Aid organizations are operating in an accountability vacuum, in contexts where law and order has broken down and where there are no external systems able to hold them to account,” said Asmita Naik, an international human rights consultant who co-authored a report on sexual exploitation involving U.N. personnel.

“Things will not change until those who perpetrate abuse or turn a blind eye are disciplined and conversely, those who speak up are rewarded,” Naik said.

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Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

Maria Cheng, The Associated Press

NASA releases stunning new pic of Milky Way's 'downtown'




CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA has released a stunning new picture of our galaxy’s violent, super-energized “downtown.”

It's a composite of 370 observations over the past two decades by the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, depicting billions of stars and countless black holes in the center, or heart, of the Milky Way. A radio telescope in South Africa also contributed to the image, for contrast.

Astronomer Daniel Wang of the University of Massachusetts Amherst said Friday he spent a year working on this while stuck at home during the pandemic.

“What we see in the picture is a violent or energetic ecosystem in our galaxy’s downtown,” Wang said in an email. “There are a lot of supernova remnants, black holes, and neutron stars there. Each X-ray dot or feature represents an energetic source, most of which are in the center.”

This busy, high-energy galactic center is 26,000 light years away.

His work appears in the June issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Launched in 1999, Chandra is in an extreme oval orbit around Earth.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press

Mexican wrestling fans celebrate return of 'lucha libre'
AFP

The raucous sounds of roaring applause, lighthearted laughter and derisive whistles are again resounding through the cavernous Arena Mexico in the country's capital, a temple of the colorful "lucha libre" wrestling, as the receding threat of Covid-19 has allowed a return to something closer to normal.

© CLAUDIO CRUZ A masked wrestler is seen in action during an event at the Arena Mexico in Mexico City on May 28, 2021

© CLAUDIO CRUZ Wrestlers fight during an event in Mexico City's Arena Mexico on May 28, 2021 as an improved Covid situation has allowed the return of pro wrestling

Though the stands in the arena in the heart of Mexico City are far from full owing to Covid restrictions, the deafening echo of the voices of hundreds of enthusiastic fans, along with the grunts, taunts and shouts of the wrestlers, seem to make up for the empty seats.

© CLAUDIO CRUZ A seller arranges wrestling masks for sale outside the Arena Mexico in Mexico City; the return of pro wrestling has been a boon for nearby businesses

Ivan Martinez, a 47-year-old doctor, admitted to feeling "quite emotional." With his family, he had traveled the 1,700 miles (2,800 kilometers) from his native Tijuana, in the northwest, to see the return of pro wrestling.

"It gives me great joy to return to an arena, to the wrestlers I've loved and enjoyed since I was a child -- a love I've passed on to my own children," he said.

- Colorful masks, scowling faces -

In the ring, the colorfully garbed gladiators do their thing. Some of the hulking athletes wear the stern-looking masks that have made Mexican wrestling famous, while others, in dazzlingly colorful outfits, choose to bare their scowling faces.

Each leap, punch or hold culminates with a body being slammed to the canvas mat, producing gasps and thunderous applause from appreciative fans. But it is all more circus than true combat.

The return of professional wrestling has been a boon to businesses in the neighborhood, boosting sales of everything from masks and dolls of the more famous wrestlers, to food and drink.

"Many people depend on the wrestling," said Samia Garcia, a 40-year-old pharmaceutical biologist who was heading in to the show. "So I'm glad they are starting to open."

The city government has authorized the arena to sell only 500 tickets -- barely 3 percent of its normal capacity of 16,500. Everyone has to wear masks and maintain social distance.

Still, the sense of joy is almost palpable.

"I've loved wrestling since I was little," said Ramses Salas, a 26-year-old mask seller. "I used to run around in here when I was a child... and now I'm more than happy to come back."

All this has been made possible by a sharp improvement in Mexico's Covid situation.

With 759 people currently hospitalized with the coronavirus, the hospitals of Mexico City are currently at 9 percent of capacity -- down dramatically from 90 percent in January, and the lowest level since April 2020.

Mexico, with 126 million inhabitants, has registered 2.4 million confirmed cases and 223,072 deaths, making it the fourth hardest-hit country in the world in absolute numbers.

Experts say the steady decline in coronavirus cases and rising levels of immunity from vaccination or infection suggest that the worst of the pandemic may be over for Mexico.

Wrestling fans hope it won't be long before they can fill all the seats in the arena.

jla/yo/bbk/acb

The brazen arrest of a Belarusian activist has terrified dissidents all over the world

Analysis by Luke McGee, CNN , MAY 29, 2021


The chilling story of a Belarusian dissident being plucked from the sky while traveling on a passenger jet over the country's airspace sent a message to other opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko: you're not safe anywhere

© Sergei Grits/AP Belarus police detain journalist Roman Protasevich in Minsk, Belarus, Sunday, March 26, 2017. Dozens protestors were detained during attempt to rally in downtown Minsk. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Roman Protasevich was arrested in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, after Ryanair flight 4978 was diverted to land in the country following a "security alert." He is charged with "organizing mass riots and group actions that grossly violate public order," from outside the country, via his Telegram channel.

He has confessed to the charges in a video which his supporters believe was made under duress.

Life has been difficult for Belarusian dissidents since last year's elections, in which Lukashenko, often described as Europe's last dictator, claimed to have won over 80% of the vote.

In the weeks that followed, mass protests took place across the country with many believing that the poll was rigged. Three of the women who stood in opposition to Lukashenko disappeared from sight or fled the country in fear for their lives after the election.

"No one can feel safe in Europe," Franak Viacorka, an adviser to Svetlana Tikhanovksya, one of those opposition figures, told CNN earlier this week, speaking about the wider repercussions of Belarus's forced downing of the Ryanair plane for the entire continent.

Speaking from exile in Lithuania, Viacorka said in a subsequent interview that even in Vilnius, he had received death threats and made to feel unsafe. "There are no limits for this regime. I have a special application which sends a signal to my friends and family if something happens to me."

While skyjacking is in itself a very unusual act, this kind of transnational repression is increasingly common in a world where authoritarians are less afraid of consequences.

"What's more common is states using the institutions of other states in order to get to people," says Nate Schenkkan, co-author of Freedom House's report, Out of Sight, Not Out of Reach: Understanding Transnational Repression. "Authoritarian states might label someone a terrorist at home then recruit local law officials to have them detained and deported," he explains.

Schenkkan points to the case of Roohollah Zam, an Iranian activist who was lured from France to Iraq where he was subsequently kidnapped, taken to Iran and executed. "This case is important to note as he was also operating a Telegram channel which allowed him to have an influential voice while overseas. The regime didn't like that."

The report also highlights the case of Paul Rusesabagina, a high-profile critic of Rwandan president Paul Kagame. Rusesabagina's family believes he was kidnapped from Dubai in August 2020.

Schenkkan's report explains that Rwanda's government claimed they had "achieved his return through 'an international arrest warrant,' only for the authorities in the United Arab Emirates to deny that they had cooperated in the return." This was claimed, the report says, to add some legitimacy to the abduction.

© Christoph Soeder/AP "Freedom for Raman Pratasevich" (Protasevich) is written on a protest wagon in front of the Embassy of Belarus in Berlin, Germany, Monday, May 24, 2021.

Freedom House found that transnational repression is becoming a normal phenomenon, noting that many governments were using the same methods to attack their critics abroad. Those methods ranged from outright detention to online intimidation. Alarmingly, it concludes that the "consequences for transnational repression are currently insufficient to deter further abuse."

These trends of copycat repression and insufficient consequences have not gone unnoticed by dissidents elsewhere. And for many, the case in Belarus has stoked further fears.

"With China and Russia arduously promoting authoritarianism, leaders have more confidence in committing human rights violations," says Nathan Law, a Hong Kong human rights activist exiled in London. "I may now need to not only avoid going to countries where China has good relationships, but also taking planes flying over their territory," he said, following the detention of Protasevich in Belarus.

© CNN Roman Protasevich appeared in a video from a Minsk detention center.

Law is one of the six activists in exile that Hong Kong police have issued an arrest warrant for under its controversial national security law, which claims worldwide jurisdiction and allows for extradition to the Chinese mainland.

Why are the consequences so insufficient for egregious offenders? Tatyana Margolin, Eurasia director at Open Society Foundations, thinks it's a cocktail of a rise in global authoritarianism and a growing indifference to those leaders from citizens of democratic nations.

"We can safely say that the authoritarian tide has moved across the world, including in the US under Trump's presidency," Margolin says, pointing to Donald Trump's perceived love of strongmen in countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia.

"Citizens in the West are less bothered about the plight of migrants now, so are less compelled to have sympathy for people seeking refuge. This has led to immigration policies that make attaining refugee status harder and people easier to target," she adds.

Trump's friends in Russia and Saudi Arabia have been guilty of some of the worst examples of transnational repression in recent years.

The brazen behavior of the two Russian operatives believed to be behind the 2018 attempted murder of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English town of Salisbury is a good indication of how much Moscow cares about the consequences of these actions. The pair gave an almost mocking interview to Russian state TV shortly after being identified as suspects in the nerve agent poisonings, making light-hearted claims about being cathedral enthusiasts who were only in the UK to visit the historic town. The mountain of evidence against them suggests otherwise.

Multiple Western nations, including the US, imposed sanctions on Russian companies and individuals, and expelled Russian diplomats in the wake of the Salisbury attack, though it's unclear if these actions have cowed Moscow.

"I don't think the words safety or security apply to anyone who is opposition in Russia," says Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition politician who has been poisoned twice in Moscow in five years, told CNN last year.

© ALEXEI DRUZHININ/Sputnik/AFP/Getty Images Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) shakes hands with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko during their meeting in Sochi on February 22, 2021.

Vladimir Ashurkov, another opposition figure, says that the "situation with Roman Protasevich is probably every dissident's nightmare." Speaking from London, he adds that he has "no doubt that Russian security services are capable of conducting assassinations," and expresses concern that Lukashenko "raised it to a new level with the usage of a hoax bomb" -- a concern of many who fear that what one authoritarian leader gets away with, others emulate.

© YASIN AKGUL/AFP/AFP via Getty Images A demonstrator holds a poster picturing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and a candle during a gathering outside the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul, on October 25, 2018.

The most reported incident in recent years was probably the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey in 2018. Numerous reports have pointed the finger at the inner circle of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but no real action has been taken against Riyadh's most powerful man.

Then-president Trump was criticized for ignoring CIA findings that bin Salman personally directed the murder.

Ali Al-Ahmed, a high-profile dissident based in Washington DC, says that he avoids traveling for fear of being "taken or killed." "It happened to Jamal and it could happen to me," he says, adding that traveling to other Arab countries is not an option because he fears being "captured and sold" back to the Saudi government.

Al-Ahmed also explains that even with the security that should come with living in the US, he is still subjected to intimidation online. "People accuse me of being a terrorist, presumably to make Americans nervous of me and to build a case for having me arrested and extradited."

Despite authorities in the US knowing the kind of misery Al-Ahmed lives with, he says "we have to be realistic." He says that even countries like the US and UK, which bill themselves as human rights defenders, have to have a "pragmatic" relationship with Saudi Arabia.

"If they gain something from placing sanctions on MBS, they will. If they need to maintain a relationship, they will make a load of noise but will put sanctions on lesser figures," he adds.

What can be done to make Western governments care and act? For now, very little. The trend towards more inward-looking societies has existed for some time -- and the coronavirus pandemic has done nothing to help.

"We are moving towards a state-centric world view which has resulted in migration policies that are more interested in national security than refugees," explains Schenkkan.

This insular, nationalist thinking means it's harder to make people care about things that happen to other people. Margolin believes that the Belarus arrest will be old news very soon.

"There is outrage across the world, but how long will it last? It will be replaced by another story and things in Belarus will go back to normal. The international community must stand with the people of Belarus and ensure that doesn't happen," she says.

The dire situation facing political dissidents living in exile is unlikely to improve soon. Until Western leaders make meaningful stands against countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and many others, the benefits of capturing a political opponent for domestic reasons will outweigh the risk.

And, unfortunately for the people this most affects, that won't happen while so many of the world's largest democracies place human rights below economic or strategic interests with some of the most oppressive regimes on earth.

'For fallen souls' - A survivor says Myanmar fight must go on

(Reuters) - Each morning, Ko Phyo washes himself and his two-year-old son while seated on a chair, a plastic bag covering what remains of a thigh that he says was shattered by a bullet fired by a Myanmar soldier.

© Reuters/STRINGER The Wider Image: 'For fallen souls' - A survivor says Myanmar fight must go on

Ko Phyo says he was wounded on the front lines of the biggest protests against Myanmar's military in decades. Now, he is adjusting to life as an amputee and single parent in a country in chaos since a Feb. 1 coup.


The 24-year-old says he joined the nationwide protest movement in the biggest city Yangon, acting as a guard trying to protect demonstrators from security forces during daily pro-democracy marches and strikes.

(Open https://reut.rs/3wTmBlV in an external browser to see a picture story on Ko Phyo)

"We ran away because we didn't want to get arrested and beaten," he said, recalling a day in early March when he was cornered as police and a soldier advanced.

"Then they started shooting, I was shot in the leg, and fell on the ground."

Security forces have killed more than 800 people since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group. The ruling junta says around 300 have died, most of them "terrorists" and "instigators of violence".

Ko Phyo said he carried only a shield.


The bullet that hit him severed three arteries. The soldier who fired the shot removed it with a knife, and a local policeman he knew took him to a military hospital, a journey that took more than two hours, he said.

"I started feeling the pain and I couldn't bear it. I told them to cut off my leg immediately. They cut it on the seventh day."

Ko Phyo has been learning to become mobile in a wheelchair in his three-room home and uses crutches when outdoors to deal with the uneven roads and paths that run between the green fields of his Yangon township.

He hopes to return to his job handling vehicle licensing with the road transport authority, when stability eventually returns.

Concern about the future of his son drove him to join the anti-junta protests and gave him motivation to recover faster and leave hospital after 12 days, he said.

He sees the loss of his leg as a small sacrifice compared to those of the hundreds killed, including one of his fellow guards, a 15-year-old girl.

"All protesters out there are fighting for the next generations ... The military is supposed to protect its own people, but they are killing us instead."

"We must keep fighting," Ko Phyo said. "We must win this revolution to bring justice for fallen souls."

His son is adapting to the new reality too, playing games with his father and bringing him snacks and cushions to make him comfortable on the floor.

"I feel terrible when he asked, 'Dad, where's your leg?'," he said.

"So, I replied 'a dog's eaten my leg but it will grow later'. And he still believes it."

(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M
A massive cannabis farm raided by UK police turned out to be a bitcoin mine
ilee@insider.com (Isabelle Lee) 8 hrs ago

© West Midlands Police The bitcoin ‘mine’ uncovered during industrial unit raid in UK. West Midlands Police

When UK police were getting ready to raid what they suspected was a cannabis farm, they discovered a crypto mine instead.

Police said the mine was stealing thousands of pounds worth of electricity from the main supply.

"It's certainly not what we were expecting," the police said in a statement.

When police in West Midlands, UK were getting ready to raid what they suspected was a cannabis farm on May 18, they instead discovered a cryptocurrency mine that was stealing thousands of pounds worth of electricity from the main supply.
"It's certainly not what we were expecting," Sandwell Police Sergeant Jennifer Griffin, said in a statement.

British police were alerted of numerous people visiting the location at different times of the day. Wiring and ventilation ducts that were visible and voluminous also raised concerns. Following these suspicions, the police flew a drone above the location, which picked up a considerable heat source from above.

"It had all the hallmarks of a cannabis cultivation set-up," Griffin said.

But upon entry, they discovered a bank of around 100 computer units as part of what's understood to be a bitcoin mining operation. Griffin said this is believed to be the only second such crypto mine British police have encountered in the region

.

© West Midlands Police The bitcoin 'mine' uncovered during industrial unit raid in UK. West Midlands Police

"We've seized the equipment and will be looking into permanently seizing it under the Proceeds of Crime Act," Griffin said. "No one was at the unit at the time of the warrant and no arrests have been made - but we'll be making enquiries with the unit's owner."

Cryptocurrency mining has long been criticized due to its heavy energy use and environmental impact. Various research, including a study from Cambridge University, has shown that bitcoin mining around the world uses more energy each year than some entire nations.

"My understanding is that mining for cryptocurrency is not itself illegal but clearly extracting electricity from the mains supply to power it is," Griffin said.

Western Power, the electricity distribution operator for the Midlands, revealed that thousands of pounds worth of energy had been stolen to power the mine, bypassing the normal electric supply.

More and more governing bodies have raised concerns about the massive energy consumption needed to mine cryptocurrencies.

On May 26, Iran has banned cryptocurrency mining over the summer ahead of an anticipated surge in electricity demand.

China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on May 19 doubled down on its crypto-mining ban by setting up a hotline for the general public to report suspected activity.

In New York, a bill introduced in the State Senate is seeking to halt bitcoin mining for three years until the state has assessed its impact on the environment.

US
Student debt rises as the future of loan forgiveness remains uncertain

Jessica Dickler 

CNBC 5/28/2021

The price of college is going up. The average tuition and fees increased 1.1% for public colleges and 2.1% for private institutions.

This year’s incoming freshman class can expect to borrow more than $38,000 to help cover the cost of a bachelor’s degree, according to a new report.

Play Video
Will your student loan debt be forgiven?

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the price of higher education is an even bigger consideration than usual for students and their families. At the same time, the cost of a four-year college or university has never been higher.

Average tuition and fees for the 2020-21 academic year increased by 1.1% to $10,560 for in-state students at four-year public colleges, according to the College Board, which tracks trends in college pricing and student aid. The data also showed tuition and fees at four-year private institutions rose by 2.1% to $37,650.

Most students must borrow to cover much of the cost, which has already propelled collective student loan debt in the U.S. past a stunning $1.7 trillion.

But this year's incoming freshman class will rely on loans even more in pursuit of a degree at a public college or university, new data shows.

Typically, seven in 10 college seniors graduate in the red, owing nearly $30,000 per borrower, according to data from the Institute for College Access & Success.

Going forward, a 2021 high school graduate could take on as much as $38,147 in student loans, on average, according to a recent NerdWallet analysis of data from the National Center for Education Statistics. That's up from $37,200 for 2020 high school grads.

The report factors in that it now takes five years, on average, to complete a four-year bachelor's degree, given that more undergraduates are taking time off.

© Provided by CNBC

Even the interest rates on federal student loans are set to rise by nearly one percentage point starting in July.

This will increase monthly loan payments on a 10-year repayment term to $99.99 from $95.41 for every $10,000 in debt borrowed that academic year, according to higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.

For those already struggling under the weight of student debt, President Joe Biden used his executive powers to extend the pause federal student loan payments until October.

Nearly 43 million federal borrowers are hoping massive student loan forgiveness might be Biden's next major move.

Although the upcoming annual White House budget proposal won't include any student debt forgiveness, the status this proposal is still unknown.

Four methods to pay off your student loans early

"The fact that President Biden didn't include student loan forgiveness in his budget request does not mean that student loan forgiveness won't happen," Kantrowitz said.

Biden has asked the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Education to issue a report on the limits of his authority to forgive student loans through executive action, and he is unlikely to take any action until he receives those findings, whether through executive action or proposed legislation, Kantrowitz added.

The Education Department also said Monday it is starting the process of issuing new regulations focused on student loan repayment and debt-forgiveness programs.

In the meantime, the payment pause offers borrowers a rare opportunity to chip away at the balance of their loans or other high-interest debt or put the money toward an emergency savings fund.

Democrats want to allow 60-year-olds into Medicare as part of Biden's infrastructure package

jzeballos@businessinsider.com (Joseph Zeballos-Roig) 

© Getty/Pool Rep. Pramila Jayapal. Getty/Pool

Democrats are attempting to expand Medicare as a part of Biden's infrastructure plans.

"Medicare expansion means more coverage for more people," a top Democrat said.

The effort may be derailed by Joe Manchin, who says he opposes enlarging Medicare access.

The latest Democratic battle to expand Medicare access is under way.

A group of more than 150 House Democrats from the progressive and centrist wings of the party are launching a campaign to include an expansion of Medicare in President Joe Biden's infrastructure plan, The New York Times reported.

They sent a letter on Thursday to Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris arguing to widen the federal health program so it includes a broader range of Americans, along with growing the range of benefits provided so it includes dental, vision, and hearing aids.

"Medicare expansion means more coverage for more people - and by finally allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, it's at a lower cost for taxpayers," Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Pramila Jayapal, a leader of the effort, said in a Friday tweet. "Let's get this done."


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The plan would cut the eligibility age from 65 to 60, adding roughly 23 million Americans into the government health insurance program. The group projects it would amount to $200 billion over a decade. They say the price tag would be offset with another proposal: empowering Medicare to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs, which Democrats have failed to achieve in the past.



Video: Whitmer, GOP leaders cut deal on budget talks, work rules (WZZM-TV Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek)


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Whitmer, GOP leaders cut deal on budget talks, work rules
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The effort is certain to trigger Republican opposition and potentially reopen a fierce debate among Democrats on healthcare. The last Democratic presidential primary was largely defined by policy brawls over Medicare for All and whether Americans should be able to keep their private coverage in a reform effort.


Expanding Medicare access is popular with voters, however, particularly reducing prescription drug costs. Up to now, however, Biden and Democrats have directed their efforts at expanding the insurance subsidies available under the Affordable Care Act.

Widening Medicare coverage could run into roadblocks in the Senate from centrist Democrats. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has stated his opposition, complicating the path ahead for other Democrats supportive of the measure. "No, I'm not for it, period," he told The Washington Post last month. It's unclear why Manchin opposes it, although he told The Hill in 2019 the government "can't even pay for Medicare for some."

Biden continues negotiating with Republicans on an infrastructure plan, and the talks are set to stretch into at least early June. The White House did not include a Medicare expansion or a blueprint to cut the price of prescription drugs in its economic plans, though it called on Congress to approve the measures in its budget without laying out specific policies.

Turning Kenya's plastic waste problem into a building solution

CBSNews

5/29/2021

For the latest report in our "Eye on Earth" series, CBS News correspondent Debora Patta went to Kenya to learn about a creative approach to addressing the scourge of plastic pollution.

Nairobi — Floating in the middle of world's largest ocean, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a man-made mess of plastic waste covering twice as much area as the state of Texas. Kenya is one of many countries contributing to the pollution.

Hundreds of tons of plastic waste are created every day in the capital, Nairobi, alone. On the outskirts of the sprawling city festers the Dandora dump — about 30 acres, or 22 football fields, of waste. Despite a pioneering ban on single-use plastics in 2017, Kenya is still drowning it.

Innovative young Kenyan scientist is turning Nairobi's mountain of plastic waste into paving bricks

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© Provided by CBS News A woman who works selling roasted corn for lunch to people who scavenge garbage for a living walks down a path between hills of garbage at the dump in Dandora, on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, in a December 2018 file photo. / Credit: Ben Curtis/AP

But while most people look at Dandora and see an insurmountable plastic mountain, Patta met a young woman who's finding innovative ways to tackle the problem, and to move that mountain.

There are days in Kenya when you can actually walk on water. Patta saw one river so choked with plastic that it has formed an unsinkable foundation. It's a disturbing health hazard for everyone living there, but not for Nzambi Matee.

"I get excited when I see waste," the materials scientist told Patta, "because I know that's life for us."

The fact that plastic does not sink is precisely what intrigued Matee.

© Provided by CBS News A river in Nairobi, Kenya, clogged with plastic and other garbage. / Credit: CBS/Debora Patta

"I came across this concept of using plastic to [make] building blocks," she explained.

Tons of plastic clogs drains, pollutes rivers and contaminates animal feed in the region, and some of it ends up at the Dandora landfill. The site reached its capacity and was supposed to have been shut down 20 years ago.

But every day, waste pickers trudge through the rancid trash sifting for plastic. It wasn't easy for Matee to figure out whether she really could turn the waste material into useable building bricks.

When it finally worked, "that was the best day ever," she told Patta. "It took us about nine months just to make one brick."

One brick wasn't enough, but that was no problem for a woman who likes to get her hands dirty. Next, she built a machine to mass produce the plastic bricks.

© Provided by CBS News Materials scientist Nzambi Matee holds one of the bricks she's made of plastic from waste gathered at a landfill in Nairobi, Kenya. / Credit: CBS/Debora Patta

First the waste is sorted to remove rubble and metal, and then the plastic is baked — just like "making cookies," joked Matee — before the boiling mixture is molded into building blocks. Her setup can churn out as many as 2,000 per day, and they're 35% cheaper than standard bricks, and up to seven-times stronger.

Right now, Matee's bricks are only being used for pathways in small households, but she wants to target big construction companies.

Kenya's fight against plastic pollution isn't just a homegrown issue. It's complicated by the fact that, two years ago, the U.S. exported more than one billion pounds of plastic waste to 96 nations, including Kenya. Now Washington wants to make the shipment of more plastic waste a condition of a proposed trade deal.

Greenpeace activist Amos Wemanya believes Kenya can barely manage its own waste, let alone recycle America's.

"It would be importing more problems if we were to allow this U.S.-Kenya trade deal to be used as a way of dumping plastic waste on the African continent," he told CBS News.

© Provided by CBS News Single-use plastics cause concern amid virus 04:09

Matee agrees that countries should keep their waste in their own backyards, and she intends to make good on what she calls her triple threat:

"The more we recycle the plastic, the more we produce affordable housing… the more we created more employment for the youth," she said.

Like many young Kenyans, Matee is passionate about saving the environment, but it's not just words. She's hoping that through her actions, the mountain in Dandora will become a mere hill.