Camilla

UK's Queen Camilla reveals she had pneumonia

  • Camilla missed last month's Remembrance Day commemoration events due to the chest infection.
  • A bout of pneumonia led Queen Camilla, the wife of King Charles III, to cancel several events, she told guests at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, according to UK media.
  • Camilla missed last month's Remembrance Day commemoration events due to the chest infection.
A bout of pneumonia led Queen Camilla, the wife of King Charles III, to cancel several events, she told guests at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, according to UK media.
The 77-year-old made the comments at a reception for the state visit of Qatar's emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.
Camilla missed last month's Remembrance Day commemoration events due to the chest infection.
She returned to duties on November 12, but has opted to skip the outdoor activities planned for the two-day Qatari state visit beginning on Tuesday as she is suffering from post-infection fatigue.
"She has lost the coughing but the lingering side of it is bouts of extreme tiredness," a royal source told the domestic Press Association.
It is the latest health scare for the family.
Catherine, Princess of Wales, only recently returned to the public eye after ending a course of chemotherapy, having announced her cancer diagnosis in March.
The shock announcement came after the palace had revealed the previous month that Charles had been diagnosed with an undisclosed cancer and would withdraw from public life to undergo treatment.
Both have since made limited returns to public duties, but Charles -- who recently toured Australia and Samoa -- is still undergoing treatment.
jwp/jj/jhb

pollution

Relief as Delhi schools reopen but smog crisis persists

BY ABHAYA SRIVASTAVA

  • "I'm happy that class is back," the 13-year-old added.
  • Teenage student Aniksha is relieved to be back in class in India's capital -- even if the choking smog that prompted her school to close last month has yet to dissipate.
  • "I'm happy that class is back," the 13-year-old added.
Teenage student Aniksha is relieved to be back in class in India's capital -- even if the choking smog that prompted her school to close last month has yet to dissipate.
New Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area is home to more than 30 million people and is blanketed by a thick and acrid haze each winter.
The public health crisis has grown steadily worse over the years and weeks-long school closures across the capital, aimed at shielding vulnerable children from the harmful skies, are now an annual occurrence.
But for the students like Aniksha it is a dreary ritual that disrupts their learning for weeks and keeps them stuck at home, isolated from friends.
"It's boring to stay at home," Aniksha, who uses only one name, told AFP on the grounds of her government school in the capital's west. 
"I'm happy that class is back," the 13-year-old added. "You can do more in school. You can interact with the teachers and also get their help."
Nearly two million students across Delhi were out of schools for more than two weeks last month as the skies overhead turned a sickly yellow-grey.
At the peak of the smog, levels of PM2.5 -- dangerous cancer-causing microparticles that enter the bloodstream through the lungs -- surged more than 60 times the World Health Organization's recommended daily maximum.
Delhi's government gave schools the option to reopen last week, and many have resumed in-person classes in the days since.
But the crisis has not abated, with PM2.5 levels still 16 times the WHO limit on Tuesday, and the city regularly ranking as the world's most polluted by monitoring company IQAir over the past few days.
Schools are directed to offer online alternatives during smog closures to minimise disruption to lessons. 
In practice, remote learning highlights the gulf between the city's prosperous classes and its mass of urban poor.
"Online teaching doesn't help much, many children don't have smartphones or struggle for network," language teacher Vandana Pandey, 29, told AFP.
Pandey said the school closures also did nothing to protect the health of students at her government school, who did not have the means to shield themselves from the poisonous air.
"They come from humble backgrounds," she said. When they don't have school, they are either playing outside or helping out their parents. They are not staying at home," she told AFP.
"It's not helping them in any way."

'Fit and healthy'

Delhi is enveloped each winter by a mix of factory emissions and vehicle exhaust alongside smoke from seasonal crop burn-offs by farmers.
The toxic melange builds and lingers for weeks thanks to cooler temperatures and slow-moving winds.
A study in the Lancet medical journal attributed 1.67 million premature deaths in India to air pollution in 2019.
The foul air severely impacts children, with devastating effects on their health and development.
Scientific evidence shows children who breathe polluted air are at higher risk of developing acute respiratory infections, a report from the UN children's agency said in 2022.
A 2021 study published in the medical journal Lung India found nearly one in three school-aged children in the capital were afflicted by asthma and airflow obstruction.
Piecemeal government initiatives, such as partial restrictions on fossil fuel-powered transport and water trucks spraying mist to clear particulate matter from the air, have failed to make a noticeable improvement.
School closures are also ostensibly meant to improve air quality by cutting down on the number of Delhi residents commuting each day.
But Kashish, a sanitation worker and mother of two young students, who uses only one name, told AFP that it was obvious this year's closures had made no impact.
"You can't get rid of the pollution just by keeping children away from school," she said.
abh/gle/mtp

tobacco

EU countries push for outdoor smoking and vaping bans

  • In a joint declaration ahead of the vote, Italy and Romania said calls for a ban on outdoor vaping lacked scientific basis and should have not been included in the recommendation. 
  • EU countries agreed Tuesday on a push for stricter anti-smoking rules, backing bans on smoking and vaping in many outdoor areas including playgrounds and cafe patios.
  • In a joint declaration ahead of the vote, Italy and Romania said calls for a ban on outdoor vaping lacked scientific basis and should have not been included in the recommendation. 
EU countries agreed Tuesday on a push for stricter anti-smoking rules, backing bans on smoking and vaping in many outdoor areas including playgrounds and cafe patios.
A recommendation inviting member states to crack down on second-hand smoke and vapour was adopted by health ministers from the bloc's 27 nations meeting in Brussels. 
"Today's agreement is a crucial step towards our goal of a tobacco-free generation in Europe, and is critical in protecting our children and young people from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke," said the EU's health commissioner, Oliver Varhelyi.
The recommendation is non-binding, as health is a competence of individual member states.
But it gives an indication of the policies governments could pursue in the future as they seek to reduce smoke-related deaths and ailments.
It passed with all countries voting in favour apart from Germany and Greece, which abstained, underscoring some political divisions on the issue.
Last week, the European Parliament voted against a similar text.
The document approved on Tuesday calls on EU countries to extend restrictions in place for cigarettes to cover "emerging products", such as heated tobacco devices and electronic cigarettes that are increasingly popular with young people.
Governments should "provide effective protection" from aerosols emitted by these in indoor environments such as offices and public buildings.
Following an initial proposal put forward by the European Commission in September, the text says such protection should also be granted in some outdoor areas.
This in practice entails that all smoking should be banned in locations including swimming pools, beaches, zoos, rooftop bars and restaurant terraces.
- 'Violation of individual freedom' - 
The push comes as the EU is aiming to reduce its smoking population from around 25 percent now to less than five percent of the total by 2040, as part of its "Beating Cancer Plan".
Tobacco use is estimated to kill more than eight million people globally each year, including about 1.3 million non-smokers who are exposed to second-hand smoke, World Health Organization (WHO) statistics show.
Emissions from electronic cigarettes also typically contain nicotine and other toxic substances that are harmful including to second-hand smokers, according to the WHO.
But treating smoking and vaping the same way is contentious.
In a joint declaration ahead of the vote, Italy and Romania said calls for a ban on outdoor vaping lacked scientific basis and should have not been included in the recommendation. The two countries nevertheless backed the text.
Germany abstained saying that the issue fell within the competences of its regions -- not the central government -- and some opposed a ban on smoking in outdoor terraces and patios. 
Greece similarly voiced skepticism about the effect of such rules, saying more scientific data was needed on the effects of e-cigarettes.
The European Parliament last week voted against a resolution on the same subject, after lawmakers on the right passed amendments to differentiate between traditional tobacco products and electronic devices.
This drew the ire of the left, which had supported the original text but rejected its watered down version. 
"We see the outdoor smoking ban as a violation of individual freedom," Pietro Fiocchi, a lawmaker with the hard-right ECR group, said in a statement.
The parliamentary resolution, which would have had only symbolic value, was turned down with 378 votes against and only 152 in favour.
ub-adc/ec/js

US

US lawmakers back Covid Chinese lab leak theory after two-year probe

  • The congressional panel was persuaded by the lab leak theory after meeting 25 times, conducting more than 30 transcribed interviews and reviewing more than one million pages of documents.
  • US lawmakers concluded a two-year investigation Monday into the Covid-19 outbreak that killed 1.1 million Americans -- backing the theory that the virus likely leaked from a Chinese laboratory.
  • The congressional panel was persuaded by the lab leak theory after meeting 25 times, conducting more than 30 transcribed interviews and reviewing more than one million pages of documents.
US lawmakers concluded a two-year investigation Monday into the Covid-19 outbreak that killed 1.1 million Americans -- backing the theory that the virus likely leaked from a Chinese laboratory.
A 520-page report from the Republican-controlled House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic looked at the federal and state-level response, as well as the pandemic's origins and vaccination efforts.
"This work will help the United States, and the world, predict the next pandemic, prepare for the next pandemic, protect ourselves from the next pandemic, and hopefully prevent the next pandemic," panel chairman Brad Wenstrup said in a letter to Congress. 
US federal agencies, the World Health Organization and scientists across the planet have arrived at different conclusions about the most likely origin of Covid-19, and no consensus has emerged.
Most believe it to have spread from animals in China, but a US intelligence analysis said last year that the virus may have been genetically engineered and escaped from a virology lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where human cases first emerged.
The congressional panel was persuaded by the lab leak theory after meeting 25 times, conducting more than 30 transcribed interviews and reviewing more than one million pages of documents.
The investigation included two days of interviews behind closed doors with Anthony Fauci, the government scientist who became the nation's most trusted expert in the chaotic early days of the 2020 outbreak.
Fauci's clashes with former and incoming president Donald Trump over the response sparked fury on the right, and he now lives with security protection following death threats against his family.
Republicans accuse the 83-year-old immunologist of helping to set off the worst pandemic in a century by approving funding passed on to Chinese scientists they accuse of manufacturing the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes Covid-19.
Among its headline conclusions, the report said the National Institutes of Health had indeed funded contentious "gain-of-function" research -- which seeks to enhance viruses as a way of finding ways to combat them -- at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Fauci angrily denied covering up the origins of Covid-19 before the panel in June, arguing that it would be "molecularly impossible" for the bat viruses studied at the lab to be turned into the virus that caused the pandemic.
But the panel's report said SARS-CoV-2 "likely emerged because of a laboratory or research-related accident."

Angry response in Beijing

Beijing hit back at the report on Tuesday, saying it had "no credibility" and accusing the United States of using the outbreak for "political manipulation".
"The authoritative scientific conclusion drawn by the China-WHO joint expert team... is that a laboratory leak is extremely unlikely," foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a regular news conference.
"In the absence of any substantive evidence, the so-called US report has concocted leading conclusions, slandered China (and) planted false evidence," he said.
The probe also found that lockdowns "did more harm than good" and that mask mandates were "ineffective at controlling the spread of Covid-19," contradicting other research showing that masking in public does reduce transmission rates.
Social distancing guidelines also came under criticism, although travel restrictions were deemed to have saved lives.
Investigators found that Trump's Operation Warp Speed -- the publicly-funded project to develop Covid vaccines -- was a "tremendous success" but that school closures would have an "enduring impact" on US children.
ft-sam/oho/dhw

health

Harvey Weinstein hospitalized after 'alarming' blood test: attorney

  • Weinstein's attorney Imran Ansari told AFP via email that the 72-year-old was taken to a New York hospital for "emergent treatment due to an alarming blood test result that requires immediate medical attention."
  • Former Hollywood movie producer and convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein was hospitalized after an "alarming blood test result," his lawyer said late Monday.
  • Weinstein's attorney Imran Ansari told AFP via email that the 72-year-old was taken to a New York hospital for "emergent treatment due to an alarming blood test result that requires immediate medical attention."
Former Hollywood movie producer and convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein was hospitalized after an "alarming blood test result," his lawyer said late Monday.
Weinstein's attorney Imran Ansari told AFP via email that the 72-year-old was taken to a New York hospital for "emergent treatment due to an alarming blood test result that requires immediate medical attention."
He will remain at the hospital "until his condition stabilizes," his lawyer added.
US media reported in October that Weinstein was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer.
The disgraced producer, who is currently serving a prison sentence at the notorious Rikers Island prison, "has been suffering from a lack of adequate medical care and enduring deplorable and inhumane conditions," Ansari said.
In the same email, Weinstein's spokesman Juda Engelmayer said his client "is suffering from a number of illnesses, including leukemia" and "has been deprived the medical attention that someone in his medical state deserves, prisoner or not."
"In many ways, this mistreatment constitutes cruel and unusual punishment," Engelmayer added.
Weinstein had previously been hospitalized in September for emergency heart surgery before being reincarcerated.
The co-founder of Miramax Films is due to be retried in New York in 2025, after an appeals court last year reversed the ruling of his 2020 sentence for raping an actress, Jessica Mann, and sexually assaulting a production assistant, Mimi Haleyi.
The trial was due to begin in November, but has since been delayed.
Weinstein has appeared in court several times due to the proceedings, most recently in October, during which he arrived in a wheelchair, pale and visibly diminished.
Prosecutors in New York, meanwhile, have since charged him in a separate sexual assault case from 2006, to which Weinstein pleaded not guilty and attorneys requested a separate trial.
The next hearing in the case is set for January 29, during which a new trial date will be set for all charges.
Although Weinstein's conviction in New York was overturned, he remains incarcerated for a separate 16-year prison sentenced issued in 2023 by a court in Los Angeles for additional rape and sexual assault charges.
In 2017, the allegations against Weinstein helped launch the #MeToo movement, a watershed moment for women fighting sexual misconduct.
More than 80 women accused him of harassment, sexual assault or rape, including prominent actors Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ashley Judd.
Weinstein has claimed that any sexual relations in question were consensual.
nr/rr/jgc/dhw

women

Chinese plus-size influencer spreads body positivity through fashion

BY JING XUAN TENG

  • - Body scrutiny - Aside from Yao, other influencers in China have found an audience eager for their posts about self-acceptance and photos of themselves enjoying clothing and food, despite the pressure to diet.
  • Surrounded by racks of colourful dresses and blazers in China's manufacturing hub of Guangzhou, plus-size clothing brand owner and influencer Amanda Yao is on a mission to promote body positivity.
  • - Body scrutiny - Aside from Yao, other influencers in China have found an audience eager for their posts about self-acceptance and photos of themselves enjoying clothing and food, despite the pressure to diet.
Surrounded by racks of colourful dresses and blazers in China's manufacturing hub of Guangzhou, plus-size clothing brand owner and influencer Amanda Yao is on a mission to promote body positivity.
She is part of a small but growing number of women in China challenging restrictive beauty standards, including thinness, pale skin and childlike features.
Online, a frequently circulated saying claims that "there are no good women over 50 kilograms (110 pounds)", while recent social media challenges have women squeezing into children's clothes or showing off the coins they can stack on their collarbones.
Yao makes fashionable, high-end clothing for plus-size women, offering a vibrant contrast to the poorly cut offerings normally available in "slimming" dark colours.
"I want my customers to have clothes that express who they are inside, rather than soulless pieces that exist only to make them look thinner," the 35-year-old told AFP.
When it comes to clothing, most Chinese retailers focus on smaller sizes and "think that larger people don't need fashion and don't need beautiful clothes", Yao said. 
"But we have work, we have families, we have respectable lives, and we also need some fancy clothes sometimes."
To promote her online store, Yao posts pictures of her outfits on the Instagram-like Xiaohongshu app, often sporting leggings and tight-fitting workout tops she wears to climb the hills near her office.
"Reject body anxiety," Yao, who openly talks about weighing 100 kilograms, wrote in one post to her more than 15,000 followers. 
"So what if I wear a strappy top and have big arms?"

Embracing colour

Yao began selling plus-size clothing four years ago after returning to China from the United Kingdom, where she had worked for several years.
"I found it especially hard to buy clothing here," she told AFP.
Items ordered online often failed to match sellers' photos, and Yao grew sick of "very ugly clothes".
In her Guangzhou office and showroom this month, Yao showed off a Chinese-style pink silk jacket from her brand Yue Design, while modelling a bright green cardigan and skirt set.
"I never post photos of myself wearing black online," Yao said.
By avoiding the colour traditionally recommended for larger women, she has also encouraged some of her customers to embrace brighter, more cheerful designs.
While clothing options for plus-size shoppers remain limited, some Chinese brands have taken steps to be more inclusive in recent years.
Lingerie brand Neiwai and loungewear company An Action A Day have featured larger models in their ads, though most of their items only cater to women up to 70 kilograms.

Body scrutiny

Aside from Yao, other influencers in China have found an audience eager for their posts about self-acceptance and photos of themselves enjoying clothing and food, despite the pressure to diet.
On Xiaohongshu, the hashtag "reject body anxiety" appears in nearly 200,000 posts. 
But this is still a marked deviation from most body image content on Chinese social media.
One recent popular format involves someone posting a photo of themselves and asking viewers for makeover tips.
These posts often draw extreme scrutiny from commenters, who pick on people for flaws as specific as having a square jaw rather than the "ideal" pointed chin.
With constant exposure to idealised body types, people "start to conflate the meaning of their own worth with what they look like," Stephanie Ng, who runs Hong Kong-based mental health organisation Body Banter, told AFP.
That has dangerous consequences, including extreme dieting and eating disorders, Ng said. 
There is little official data on eating disorders in China, but the prominent Shanghai Mental Health Center reported an increase from eight such patients in 2002 to 3,000 in 2021, according to state broadcaster CGTN.
Even though Yao has built a loyal following, her posts can also attract cruel comments.
"Daring to post an ugly photo showing your ring-shaped torso fat doesn't equal confidence," one commenter wrote under one of Yao's workout posts.
She told AFP that the criticism has only made her more determined.
"I want to help women who are feeling self-hatred to look at themselves in a new way," she said.
tjx/reb/lb/cwl

research

Brain stimulation can help injured people walk: study

BY DANIEL LAWLER

  • The research was conducted by a Swiss team that has pioneered several recent advances, including using electrical stimulation of the spinal cord to let several paralysed patients walk again.
  • Scientists said Monday that electrically stimulating a particular region in the brain could help people with injured spinal cords walk more easily, with one patient describing how the technique allowed him to conquer his fear of stairs.
  • The research was conducted by a Swiss team that has pioneered several recent advances, including using electrical stimulation of the spinal cord to let several paralysed patients walk again.
Scientists said Monday that electrically stimulating a particular region in the brain could help people with injured spinal cords walk more easily, with one patient describing how the technique allowed him to conquer his fear of stairs.
The new technique is intended for people with spinal cord injuries where the connection between their brain and spinal cord has not been totally severed, and who still have some movement in their legs.
Wolfgang Jaeger, one of two patients who took part in an early trial, said that it immediately made a "big difference" to his mobility.
"Now when I see a staircase with just a few steps, I know I can handle it on my own," the 54-year-old said in a video released alongside a new study in the journal Nature Medicine.
The research was conducted by a Swiss team that has pioneered several recent advances, including using electrical stimulation of the spinal cord to let several paralysed patients walk again.
This time around, the researchers wanted to figure out which region of the brain was most responsible for people recovering from spinal cord injuries.

'I feel the urge to walk'

Using 3D imaging techniques to map out the brain activity of mice with these injuries, the team created what they called a "brain-wide atlas".
They were surprised to find that the brain region they were looking for was in the lateral hypothalamus, which is otherwise known as a regulator for arousal, feeding and motivation.
A particular group of neurons in this region "appears to be involved in the recovery of walking after spinal cord injury," neuroscientist Gregoire Courtine at Switzerland's Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne told AFP.
Next, the team sought to amplify the signal from these neurons using a procedure called deep brain stimulation, which is commonly used to treat movement problems in people with Parkinson's disease.
It involves a surgeon implanting electrodes in the brain region, which are connected to a device implanted in the patient's chest. When switched on, the device sends electrical pulses up to the brain.
First, the team tested their theory on rats and mice, finding that it "immediately" improved walking, the study said.
The first human participant of the 2022 Swiss trial was a woman who, like Jaeger, has an incomplete spinal cord injury.
Neurosurgeon Jocelyne Bloch told AFP that when the women's device was turned on for the first time, she said: "I feel my legs."
When they turned up the electrical current, the women said, "I feel the urge to walk," according to Bloch.
The patients could turn on their device whenever they needed, and also went through months of rehab and strength training.
The woman's goal was to walk independently without a walker, while Jaeger's was to climb stairs by himself.
"Both of them reached their goal," Bloch said.

'No problem'

Jaeger, who is from the Swiss municipality of Kappel, spoke about facing eight steps down to  the sea during a holiday last year.
With the device turned on, "walking up and down the stairs was no problem," he said.
"It's a great feeling when you don't have to rely on others all the time."
Over time, he "became faster and could walk longer" even when the device was switched off, he added.
More research is still needed -- and this technique will not be effective for all patients, Courtine emphasised. 
Because it depends on boosting the brain's signal to the spinal cord, it depends how much signal was getting through in the first place.
And while deep brain stimulation is now fairly common, some people are not so "comfortable with someone operating on their brain," Courtine added.
The researchers believe that in the future, the best option for recovering from these kinds of injuries could be stimulating both their spinal cord and lateral hypothalamus.
dl/fg

suicide

Suspect freed from custody over suicide capsule death in Switzerland

  • A 64-year-old woman took her own life on September 23 inside the space-age looking Sarco capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, outside a village near the German border.
  • A man held since September over the death of a US woman inside a controversial suicide capsule in Switzerland was released from custody Monday, though he remains under suspicion.
  • A 64-year-old woman took her own life on September 23 inside the space-age looking Sarco capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, outside a village near the German border.
A man held since September over the death of a US woman inside a controversial suicide capsule in Switzerland was released from custody Monday, though he remains under suspicion.
A 64-year-old woman took her own life on September 23 inside the space-age looking Sarco capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, outside a village near the German border.
Several people were arrested at the scene, with all but one being quickly released.
The public prosecutor in the northern canton of Schaffhausen did not name the remaining suspect in custody.
However, The Last Resort, an assisted dying organisation, had recently said the association's co-president Florian Willet -- the only other person present at the death -- was the man still being held.
The public prosecutor's office said in a statement that it had originally opened criminal proceedings on the grounds of incitement and aiding and abetting suicide, with strong suspicion of intentional homicide.
"Based on the latest investigation status, there is still a strong suspicion of the crime of incitement and aiding and abetting suicide, but no longer of intentional homicide, even if the autopsy report... is not yet available," it said.
"The public prosecutor's office has therefore released the last detained person from custody," it said, adding: "The presumption of innocence applies."

Pod fills with nitrogen

The Last Resort presented the Sarco pod in Zurich in July, saying they expected it to be used for the first time within months.
The capsule fills with nitrogen and causes loss of consciousness and death by hypoxia within five minutes, according to the organisation.
The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country but assisted dying has been legal for decades.
Swiss law generally allows assisted suicide if the person commits the lethal act themselves, and The Last Resort said it saw no legal obstacle to its use in the country.
However, on the same day the Sarco was used, Switzerland's Interior Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider told lawmakers that the device was "not legal". 
The Last Resort said the person who died -- who was not named -- was a 64-year-old woman from the midwestern United States.
She "had been suffering for many years from a number of serious problems associated with severe immune compromise", the organisation said.
The Sarco was invented by Philip Nitschke, a leading global figure in right-to-die activism.
The 3D-printable capsule cost more than 650,000 euros ($680,000) to research and develop in the Netherlands over 12 years. 
The organisation said future reusable Sarco pods could cost around 15,000 euros.
rjm/nl/giv

treaty

'End in sight' to talks on pandemic treaty, says WHO chief

BY ROBIN MILLARD

  • "You should be proud of what you have achieved in the past three years and you should also be confident that the end is in sight.
  • Countries trying to negotiate a global agreement on handling future pandemics began an extra week of talks Monday, with the WHO chief insisting the end was in sight.
  • "You should be proud of what you have achieved in the past three years and you should also be confident that the end is in sight.
Countries trying to negotiate a global agreement on handling future pandemics began an extra week of talks Monday, with the WHO chief insisting the end was in sight.
The talks at the World Health Organization's headquarters in Geneva opened three years on from the decision to draft a new accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, taken in the heat of the Covid-19 crisis.
"You should be proud of what you have achieved in the past three years and you should also be confident that the end is in sight. It's closer than you think," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told negotiators for the UN health agency's 194 member states.
"I believe that you can finalise the pending issues before the end of this year," he added.
Concluding an international agreement in little over three years would be exceptionally fast, given the typical glacial pace of striking treaties.
While countries agree on the broad scope of what they want, the fine details remain in contention.
"For the pandemic agreement to be meaningful, you need provisions of strong prevention, for continued preparedness, and for robust, resilient and equitable response," warned Tedros.
"An imbalanced pandemic agreement is not an agreement."

Sense of urgency

The one-week session was scheduled as an add-on to the 12th round of negotiations, which lasted from November 4 to 15.
Monday's talks focused on research and development, sustainable financing, and transfer of technology and know-how for producing pandemic-related health products.
It also tackled the heart of the agreement: a proposed pathogen access and benefit-sharing system.
On Friday, countries will take stock and decide if they have made sufficient progress to call a special session of the World Health Assembly to adopt a finalised agreement.
A special session of the WHO's top decision-making body takes 35 days to arrange.
The body is notably mindful of Donald Trump's return to the US presidency on January 20.
Trump is hostile towards the WHO. In his first term, he began pulling the United States out of the organisation, accusing it of being a puppet of China.
Talks co-chair Precious Matsoso expressed hope that this week would "resolve most of the issues".
Co-chair Anne-Claire Amprou called it a "crucial week for the advancement of our work", and urged countries to work in a pragmatic, flexible and realistic manner.
"This is becoming urgent," she added.

'Get this done'

A key fault-line in the negotiations lies between Western nations with major pharmaceutical industry sectors, and poorer countries who do not want to be sidelined when the next pandemic strikes.
The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations said they wanted a pandemic agreement that enabled the private sector to innovate and respond effectively to future pandemics.
But UK-based charity Oxfam said countries were facing a critical question: "Do you want an agreement that seriously and practically protects the health and economy of everybody on the planet, or do you want to protect the financial health of pharmaceutical companies?"
The Panel for a Global Public Health Convention said the accord should serve as a baseline for action against pandemic threats, concluding: "We just urge you to keep it up and please get this done."
rjm/nl/cw

environment

Four decades of horror after India's Bhopal gas disaster

BY ABHAYA SRIVASTAVA

  • Forty years later, the horror continues to blight the lives of those like Devi -- as well as countless others born with deformities since that fateful night.
  • Just after midnight as poisonous plumes of smoke wafted through the Indian city of Bhopal four decades ago, Gas Devi was born, gasping for every breath.
  • Forty years later, the horror continues to blight the lives of those like Devi -- as well as countless others born with deformities since that fateful night.
Just after midnight as poisonous plumes of smoke wafted through the Indian city of Bhopal four decades ago, Gas Devi was born, gasping for every breath.
Her feeble cries were drowned out by the screams of men, women and children as they ran to escape the cloud of highly toxic gas leaking from the Union Carbide factory on the night of December 2, 1984.
Some 3,500 people were killed in the immediate aftermath, and up to 25,000 are estimated to have died overall in the world's deadliest industrial disaster.
Forty years later, the horror continues to blight the lives of those like Devi -- as well as countless others born with deformities since that fateful night.
Devi, a daily wage labourer, has constant pain in her chest, one of her lungs is not developed fully and she keeps falling sick.
"My life is a living hell," Devi told AFP, speaking at her shanty in Bhopal, the capital of the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
Even if she wanted, she cannot forgot the night she was born. 
"My parents named me Gas," she said, her eyes welling up. "I believe this name is a curse. I wish I had died that night". 
Twenty-seven tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC), used in the production of pesticides, swept through the city of over two million people after one of the tanks storing the deadly chemical shattered its concrete casing.
As the white cloud of MIC shrouded areas close to the factory, people started collapsing in the streets.
Nathuram Soni, now 81, was among the first to rush out.
"People were frothing from their mouths. Some had defecated, some were choking in their own vomit," said Soni.
A handkerchief tied over his nose, Soni used his pushcart to carry his wailing neighbours, many of them infants, to hospital.

Unrelenting tragedy

Rashida Bee, co-founder of the Chingari Trust charity that offers free treatment to children of gas-affected families, believes those who died were fortunate.
"At least their misery ended," she said. "The unfortunate are those who survived".
Her trust has seen more than 150 children being admitted this year alone with cerebral palsy, hearing and speech impairments and other disabilities.
She blames the disorders on the accident and the contamination of the groundwater.
Testing of groundwater near the site in the past revealed cancer- and birth defect-causing chemicals 50 times higher than what is accepted as safe by the US Environmental Protection Agency.
"This tragedy is showing no signs of relenting," said Rashida, 68, who has lost several members of her family to cancer since the accident.
"The soil and water here are contaminated -- that is why kids are still being born with deformities."
Union Carbide, which was acquired by the Michigan-based Dow Chemical Company in 2001, routinely dumped chemical waste years before the disaster, campaigners say.
Large evaporation ponds outside the factory were filled with thousands of litres of liquid waste.
Toxins penetrated the soil and the water supplying several neighbourhoods.
Dow Chemical did not respond to AFP's request for comment. 
Tasleem Bano, 48, is convinced of a link between the plant and congenital illnesses.
Her son Mohammed Salman's limbs were splayed when he was born.
"His twin brother died in the womb. Salman survived but he could not speak a word till he was six years old," she said, showing her son's braces that help him to stand.
"Doctors say he is like this because of the gas," said Tasleem, who inhaled the fumes as a young girl living close to the factory.
Salman, 12, could only respond with a toothy grin when asked his name.
Like Salman, hundreds of children at the Chingari centre struggle to speak, walk or eat their meals.

'Corporate massacre'

At the nearby Sambhavna Trust clinic, there is a steady queue of gas survivors seeking treatment.
"Data very clearly shows that mortality in the exposed population compared to a matched controlled (population) is much higher," said Satinath Sarangi, founder of Sambhavna.
"In 2011, we'd taken stock through our registered cohorts and we found there was 28 percent more mortality among the gas exposed."
Sarangi, 70, said the MIC fumes damaged the immune system of affected populations and caused chromosomal aberrations, something corroborated by medical research.
"Children of gas-exposed parents have much higher prevalence of congenital malformations."
In 1989 Union Carbide, in a partial out-of-court settlement with the Indian government, agreed to pay $470 million in compensation to the victims.
But the victims themselves were not consulted in the negotiations, and received just $500 each.
The current owners have refused to pay further compensation for the catastrophe that continues to unfold till this day.
In 1991, Warren Anderson, Union Carbide chairman and chief executive at the time of the disaster, was charged in India with "culpable homicide not amounting to murder".
But he never stood trial. Anderson died aged 92 in a nursing home in Florida in 2014.
A plea seeking compensation of 500,000 rupees ($5,920) from the Indian government for each victim diagnosed with cancer or kidney ailments is languishing in courts.
Rachna Dhingra, a social activist from the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, said true justice still evades the survivors.
"Until today, not a single individual has gone to jail -- even for a day -- for killing more than 25,000 people and injuring half a million people, and contaminating the soil and groundwater," she said.
"People in the city are continuing to fight because there is no legal mechanism to hold these corporations accountable worldwide.
"Bhopal has taught corporations how to get away with murder."
abh/pjm/hmn/pdw

environment

Plastic pollution talks: the key sticking points

BY KATIE FORSTER AND SARA HUSSEIN

  • "The objective of this treaty is to end plastic pollution, not plastic itself.
  • Divisions between countries have stalled negotiations on the world's first treaty to tackle plastic pollution, after a terse week of talks in South Korea's Busan.
  • "The objective of this treaty is to end plastic pollution, not plastic itself.
Divisions between countries have stalled negotiations on the world's first treaty to tackle plastic pollution, after a terse week of talks in South Korea's Busan.
Here are some of the sticking points that led to a decision early Monday to resume discussions at a later date after negotiators were unable to strike a deal:

Production cuts

The 2022 resolution that kicked off two years of negotiations called for a treaty that would "promote sustainable production and consumption of plastics".
But what that means has proved a key point of disagreement.
Dozens of nations want the deal to mandate a reduction of new plastic production, and there have been calls to phase out "unnecessary" items such as some single-use plastics.
"Mopping the floor when the tap is open is useless," said Anthony Agotha, the EU's special envoy for climate and environment.
But others, led by some oil-producing states like Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, have pushed back against any binding reduction call.
"The objective of this treaty is to end plastic pollution, not plastic itself. Plastic has brought immense benefit to societies worldwide," Kuwait's delegate said Sunday.

'Chemicals of concern'

An alliance led by Rwanda and Norway pushing for specific measures on production, the High Ambition Coalition (HAC), is also seeking controls on so-called chemicals of concern.
These are components of plastic that are known or feared to be harmful to human health.
Any agreement "must contain a clear, legally binding obligation to phase out the most harmful plastic products and chemicals of concern in plastics", Mexican delegate Camila Zepeda said in the final plenary session, in a statement backed by nearly 100 countries.
Fiji's representative had earlier warned there would be "no treaty without a provision on chemicals of concern", calling it "a non-negotiable".
But some countries have rejected any push to phase out or restrict the chemicals, pointing to existing international agreements and national regulations on toxins.
The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) said its analysis of a UN list of participants at Busan showed over 200 lobbyists from the fossil fuel and chemical industries were registered for the talks.

Finance

Implementing any treaty will cost money that developing countries say they simply do not have.
An article on financing in the latest draft agreement released on Sunday was full of conflicting possible options, reflecting deep disagreement on who will pay what, and how.
One focus of the talks has been creating a dedicated multilateral fund for the purpose -- after the hard-fought battle at COP29 climate talks to extract more finance from developed countries.
But the details are proving complicated.
"As developing countries have repeatedly called for in the past few days, the instrument should respect national differences" and "reflect equity and inclusiveness," China's delegate said late Sunday.

Globally binding?

Will the treaty create overarching global rules that bind all nations to the same standards, or allow individual countries to set their own targets and goals?
This has been another sticking point, with the European Union initially warning that "a treaty in which each party would do only what they consider is necessary is not something we are ready to support".
On the other side are nations who argue that differing levels of capacity and economic growth make common standards unreasonable.
"There shall not be any compliance regime," reads language proposed during negotiations by Iran.
Instead, it has urged an "assessment committee" that would monitor progress but "in no way" examine compliance or implementation.
sah-kaf/pdw

river

Kayaker 'stable' after leg amputated in Australian river rescue

  • He is currently in a "stable condition" at the Royal Hobart Hospital, a Tasmanian health department spokesperson said.
  • A kayaker whose leg was amputated after getting trapped in Australian river rocks is now "stable" in hospital, a health official said Sunday.
  • He is currently in a "stable condition" at the Royal Hobart Hospital, a Tasmanian health department spokesperson said.
A kayaker whose leg was amputated after getting trapped in Australian river rocks is now "stable" in hospital, a health official said Sunday.
The foreign tourist's situation had been described as critical shortly after his 20-hour ordeal in Tasmania's Franklin River.
He is currently in a "stable condition" at the Royal Hobart Hospital, a Tasmanian health department spokesperson said.
The man was described by local media as Lithuanian in his 60s who was rafting with 10 compatriots when disaster struck.
Police said he was navigating rapids with his friends on November 22 when his leg became "wedged between rocks" in a crevice on the river.
The man's smartwatch alerted emergency services, sparking a "complex and protracted" rescue mission, they said at the time.
Rescuers were unable to free the man's leg and finally opted to amputate the limb, giving him sedation and operating while he was still partially submerged in cold water.
djw/sn

AIDS

Alarm over high rate of HIV infections among young women, girls

  • "Children and adolescents are not fully reaping the benefits of scaled up access to treatment and prevention services," said UNICEF associate director of HIV/AIDS Anurita Bains. 
  • The UN's children's fund raised the alarm on Friday over the high rate of new HIV infections among young women and girls, warning they lacked access to prevention and treatment.
  • "Children and adolescents are not fully reaping the benefits of scaled up access to treatment and prevention services," said UNICEF associate director of HIV/AIDS Anurita Bains. 
The UN's children's fund raised the alarm on Friday over the high rate of new HIV infections among young women and girls, warning they lacked access to prevention and treatment.
In a report ahead of world AIDS day on Saturday, UNICEF said that 96,000 girls and 41,000 boys aged 15-19 were newly infected with HIV in 2023, meaning seven out of 10 new adolescent infections were among girls. 
In sub-Saharan Africa, nine out of 10 new HIV infections among 15-19 year-olds were among girls in the most recent period for which data is available.
"Children and adolescents are not fully reaping the benefits of scaled up access to treatment and prevention services," said UNICEF associate director of HIV/AIDS Anurita Bains. 
"Yet children living with HIV must be prioritized when it comes to investing resources and efforts to scale up treatment for all, this includes the expansion of innovative testing technologies."
As many as 77 percent of adults living with HIV have access to anti-retroviral therapy, but just 57 percent of children 14 and younger, and 65 percent of teenagers aged 15-19, can obtain lifesaving medicine.
Children 14 and younger account for only three percent of those living with HIV, but accounted for 12 per cent -- 76,000 -- of AIDS-related deaths in 2023.
Around 1.3 million people contracted the disease in 2023, according to a report from the UNAIDS agency.
That is still more than three times higher than needed to reach the UN's goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.
Around 630,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses last year, the lowest level since a peak of 2.1 million in 2004, the report said ahead of World AIDS Day on Sunday.
Much of the progress was attributed to antiretroviral treatments that can reduce the amount of the virus in the blood of patients. 
Out of the nearly 40 million people living with HIV around the world, some 9.3 million are not receiving treatment, the report warned.
gw/st

parliament

British MPs to debate contentious assisted dying law

BY JOE JACKSON

  • Parliament last debated, and defeated, a euthanasia bill in 2015, but public support for giving terminally ill people the choice to end their lives has since shifted in favour.
  • UK lawmakers will Friday debate and likely vote on whether to advance divisive and emotive legislation to allow assisted dying for terminally ill people in England and Wales.
  • Parliament last debated, and defeated, a euthanasia bill in 2015, but public support for giving terminally ill people the choice to end their lives has since shifted in favour.
UK lawmakers will Friday debate and likely vote on whether to advance divisive and emotive legislation to allow assisted dying for terminally ill people in England and Wales.
Parliament last debated, and defeated, a euthanasia bill in 2015, but public support for giving terminally ill people the choice to end their lives has since shifted in favour.
Two polls last week indicated that a majority of Britons back changing the law, which would see England and Wales emulate several European and other countries.
Supporters say allowing assisted suicide would make some deaths more dignified and less painful.
However, faith leaders are among the stringent opponents, with nearly 30 signing a joint letter last weekend arguing they are "deeply concerned" by the plans.
Critics insist it could lead some people to feel pressurised into ending their life, while some say the healthcare system is not ready for such a landmark change.
The bill would allow assisted suicide in England and Wales for adults with an incurable illness who have a life expectancy of fewer than six months and are able to take the substance that causes their death themselves.
Any patient's wish to die would have to be signed off by a judge and two doctors.
The measures are stricter than assisted dying laws in other European countries and also proposed legislation that is being considered in France.
MPs will debate the draft legislation -- introduced by a Labour lawmaker as a so-called private members' bill, which is not part of the government's agenda -- from 9:30 am (0930 GMT).
The debate will last until 2.30 pm at the latest. 
A vote on progressing the bill to its next parliamentary stage is highly likely but not guaranteed.

'Right to choose'

The legislation follows Prime Minister Keir Starmer's vow, before winning power in July, to allow parliament to revisit the issue.
The UK leader, who voted in favour of allowing assisted suicide in 2015 but with "robust" safeguards, has not revealed his current view.
The country's most senior civil servant has told cabinet members they "should not take part in the public debate" given the government is remaining neutral on the bill.
However, a number of senior ministers have aired their opinions, with Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood both saying they are opposed.
Mahmood, the country's most senior Muslim politician, argued in a recent letter to constituents that "the state should never offer death as a service", while noting that her faith was informing her stance.
Broadcaster Esther Rantzen, who is terminally ill and has spearheaded the campaign for a law change, on Thursday urged other MPs to be honest about whether faith was the basis for any opposition.
"They have the right to choose but please be honest about your real motivation," she told LBC radio.
Meanwhile former prime minister David Cameron, who opposed the 2015 law change, revealed he had changed his mind on the issue.
"As campaigners have convincingly argued, this proposal is not about ending life. It is about shortening death," he wrote in The Times newspaper on Thursday. 
However other ex-premiers -- including Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Gordon Brown -- have all said they oppose the legislation.
Assisted suicide is currently banned in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. 
In Scotland, which has a separate legal system and devolved powers to set its own health policy, it is not a specific criminal offence. But it can leave a person open to other charges, including murder.
jj/phz/gil

euthanasia

European countries that allow assisted dying

  • Luxembourg decriminalised euthanasia and assisted dying in 2009.
  • UK lawmakers will debate on Friday a new bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales that has sparked concern among opponents about its implications. 
  • Luxembourg decriminalised euthanasia and assisted dying in 2009.
UK lawmakers will debate on Friday a new bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales that has sparked concern among opponents about its implications. 
In Europe several countries already allow the terminally ill to receive help to end their lives.
Here is a round-up of the situation on the continent:
- Dutch first - 
In 2002, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise active euthanasia, whereby doctors administer lethal doses of drugs to patients suffering from an incurable condition.
It also legalised assisted suicide, where patients can receive help to take their own life voluntarily.
The Dutch law said the patient must have "unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement" and must have requested to die in a way that is "voluntary, well considered and with full conviction". 
In 2012, the Netherlands expanded the law to authorise euthanasia for over-12s in great suffering, provided they have parental consent, and in 2020 to patients with severe dementia, if the patient had requested the procedure while still mentally competent. 
The Dutch government in 2023 also approved euthanasia for children under 12 after years of debate, permitting mercy deaths for young minors suffering "unbearably and without hope". 

Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal

Belgium was the second country to adopt euthanasia and assisted suicide in 2002, with similar caveats to the Dutch.
In 2014 it went further by allowing terminally ill children of all ages to also request the procedure, with the consent of their parents.
Luxembourg decriminalised euthanasia and assisted dying in 2009.
Spain in 2021 authorised euthanasia and medically assisted suicide for people with a serious and incurable illness, followed by Portugal in 2023. In the latter case, the law is not yet in force.

Switzerland

Switzerland, which prohibits euthanasia, has for decades allowed assisted suicide, making it the go-to destination for patients from around Europe looking for assistance to end their suffering.
The growth of so-called "suicide tourism" has caused much soul-searching in Switzerland but the authorities decided in 2011 against restricting the practice.
Neighbouring Austria, a staunchly Catholic nation, also legalised assisted suicide in 2022 after its constitutional court ruled the country was violating citizens' fundamental rights with the prohibition.
In Italy, where assisted dying is against the law, the constitutional court allowed an exception in 2019.
The court ruled it should not always be punishable to help someone with "intolerable" physical or psychological suffering to commit suicide.
bur-ot-eab/ju/phz/sbk

food

Coffee price heats up on tight Brazil crop fears

  • Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, faced a record-breaking drought this year which has raised significant concerns for 2025/2026 crops amid already tight supplies.
  • The price of Arabica coffee hit the highest level since 1977 on Wednesday, approaching a record high as drought in top producer Brazil this year hits supplies. 
  • Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, faced a record-breaking drought this year which has raised significant concerns for 2025/2026 crops amid already tight supplies.
The price of Arabica coffee hit the highest level since 1977 on Wednesday, approaching a record high as drought in top producer Brazil this year hits supplies. 
A pound (453.6 grams) of Arabica beans listed in New York struck 320.10 US cents, extending the commodity's rally over 2024. 
The all-time high is 337.50 US cents, seen in 1977.
Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, faced a record-breaking drought this year which has raised significant concerns for 2025/2026 crops amid already tight supplies.
This is despite "significant rains" in October, leading to an "excellent flowering", according to Guilherme Morya, senior analyst at Rabobank. 
He added that farmers were selling less than was needed to meet demand.
Analysts said that price support came also from geopolitical factors such as disruptions to shipping in the Red Sea, potential US tariffs and future European Union regulation on deforestation.
"It is clearer and clearer that this (supply situation) is going to have a significant impact on the consumer," John Plassard, senior asset specialist at Mirabaud group, told AFP.
Companies are preparing to negotiate their coffee contracts early next year, with food giants like Nestle set to pass on price increases to customers. 
The Swiss group announced this month that it would increase prices and reduce the size of its coffee bags to protect margins.

Keep on buying

In London, some coffee drinkers approached by AFP on Wednesday vowed to keep on buying their beans, but owing to recent price hikes added that they had already begun to buy fewer cups in cafes.
"I've noticed that the prices have gone up," said Julie, 34, as she held a cup of coffee not long purchased from a coffee shop. 
"I prefer to buy packs and brew it at home. It's rare for me to buy it in the shop, but it used to be more frequent."
Nicky, 26, said she was not ready to give up purchasing cups of coffee in stores.
"I would still pay for it. Maybe that's me being financially reckless." 
She described coffee drinking as "a lifestyle, it's how people start their day". 
Vietnam has also faced supply concerns this year for its cheaper Robusta bean that is used for instant coffee, as the country faced dryness during the growing period.
Robusta, listed in London, is trading at around $5,200 per tonne, after reaching a record price of $5,829 in mid-September. 
bur-ajb/bcp/cw