Day: July 16, 2022

The world was sadder and more stressed out in 2021 than ever before, according to a recent Gallup poll, which found that four in 10 adults worldwide said they experienced a lot of worry or stress.

Experts say the most obvious culprit, the pandemic — and the isolation and uncertainty that came with it — is a factor but not entirely to blame.

Carol Graham, a Gallup senior scientist, says the culprit for declining mental health includes the economic uncertainty faced by low-skilled workers.

“There are some structural negative changes that make some people in particular more vulnerable. And in the end, mental health just reflects that,” says Graham, who is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland.

“For young people who do not have good higher levels of education, what they’re going to do in the future is very unknown. What their stability will be like, what their workforce participation will be like. … Rising levels of inequality between skilled and unskilled workers is another part of it, having to do with technology-driven growth.”

Gallup spoke to adults in 122 countries and areas for its latest Global Emotions Report. Afghanistan is the unhappiest country, with Afghans leading the world when it comes to negative experiences.

Overall, the survey results were not surprising to psychologist Josh Briley, a fellow at The American Institute of Stress.

“Things are moving faster. There’s so much information being thrown at us all the time,” he says. “And of course, media thrives on the bad stuff. So, we are constantly being bombarded with crisis after crisis in the news, on social media, on the radio and on our podcasts. And all that is drowning out the good things that are happening.”

Psychologist Mary Karapetian Alvord says being more connected online means people in one country can feel profoundly affected by what happens in another country, which wasn’t always the case in the past. For her U.S. clients, uncertainty is the biggest stressor.

“Uncertainty of life and how it’s going to impact them on a daily basis. Prices going up and gas going up. And then the supply chain issues that are impacting people in their daily lives,” Alvord says. “But I think the bigger issue is that uncertainty and so much suffering. Of course, the shootings have come up. A lot of people are really stressed out and feeling like, ‘Where is it safe?’”

There have been more than 300 shootings involving multiple victims in the United States so far in 2022.

Happiness worldwide has been trending downward for a decade, according to Gallup. All three psychologists who spoke with VOA point to social media and the flood of unfiltered information as contributors to declining mental health and happiness.

“We’ve seen this explosion worldwide, and I think that’s a big sort of tectonic shift in how humans interact and experience emotions and all sorts of things. And we’re seeing that there’s some real downsides to it,” Graham says.

Briley says part of the problem is that although people are more connected online, they’re often less connected in real life.

“The connection that we have with people, the physical connection has changed. We’re more connected than ever before with people all the way around the world, but we may not know our neighbors’ names anymore,” he says. “So, we don’t necessarily have that person where if my car breaks down, who do I call for a ride to work?”

More optimism, despite frowns

On the upside, the survey found that the percentage of people who reported laughing or smiling a lot was up two points in 2021, while the number of people who say they learned something interesting increased one point. Alvord says looking beyond the negative is critical to maintaining mental health.

“It’s important for people to also find moments of, if not joy, at least satisfaction in life,” she says. “I think sometimes we reach for happiness and that’s just not attainable … and so, our expectations need to be realistic.”

Minorities in the United States might already be doing that. The survey found that people from marginalized groups are among the most resilient.

“Their anxiety may have increased but their optimism, particularly for low-income African Americans, remains very high,” Graham says. “It was a finding I’ve seen for many years, but it surprised me that even during COVID, it held. I think that’s more due to the kind of community ties and other ties that minority communities have built, almost informal safety nets, that have been very protective many, many times in history.”

Source: Voice of America

ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan’s cash-strapped Taliban government has tripled prices for coal in less than a month to raise revenue from its mining sector amid a lack of direct foreign funding and booming coal exports to neighboring Pakistan.

The spokesman for the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum in Kabul, Esmatullah Burhan, on Saturday told VOA that each ton of coal is priced at $280.

On June 28, the Taliban-led Finance Ministry raised coal prices to $200 per ton from $90 per ton. Customs duties also were raised by 10 percent, totaling 30% on each ton, although Afghan coal is still comparatively cheap — about 40% of the international market value.

Burhan said Afghanistan is exporting about 10,000 tons of coal a day to Pakistan. He asserted that the government is selling coal to private Afghan traders in local currency (known as Afghani) and they are then exporting it, primarily to the neighboring country.

He told VOA that out of Afghanistan’s 80 coal mines, 17 are currently in use.

The repeated Afghan coal price hikes came just after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced plans last month to increase coal imports from Afghanistan using local currency, as opposed to dollars, to save foreign reserves.

Officials in Kabul insist that coal prices have been revised after studying regional markets and rising global prices in the wake of the war in Ukraine to ensure Afghan traders could receive as much revenue as possible and prevent Pakistani importers from switching to other options.

Sharif told a recent cabinet meeting that importing Afghan coal could help Islamabad save more than $2.2 billion annually. His decision comes against a backdrop of rising coal prices on the international market in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Pakistan, which reportedly imported 70% of its thermal coal from South Africa to run its cement, steel and Chinese-built power plants, is facing an energy crisis. South African coal prices have increased in recent weeks because of higher demand from Europe.

The shortages have forced coal-based facilities in Pakistan to either operate at significantly reduced capacities or to shut down plants temporarily.

Customs duties from coal exported to Pakistan are a key source of revenue for the Taliban. The Islamist group reclaimed control of Afghanistan nearly a year ago, but sanctions on the Afghan banking sector and the suspension of foreign financial aid have severely hampered the war-torn country’s economy.

No country has formally recognized the Taliban government, citing concerns over human rights of Afghans, particularly restrictions placed on women’s rights to work and education.

Islamabad already has eased the visa regime for Afghan nationals and removed duties on all imports from Afghanistan to help facilitate bilateral trade.

Additionally, Taliban authorities, in collaboration with Pakistani counterparts, are said to be working to smooth the transportation of coal exports at border crossings between the two countries.

Hundreds of trucks carrying coal pass daily through three dedicated border crossings, and both sides are planning to add more space for additional trucks and open customs facilities for longer durations per day, instead of 12 hours currently.

A high-level Pakistani delegation, led by top commerce ministry officials, will travel to Afghanistan Sunday to further the discussions. Pakistani officials said Islamabad would discuss the pricing issue, as well as propose to keep border terminals open 24 hours for coal imports and infrastructure-related improvements on the Afghan side.

Source: Voice of America

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA — Many people walk by the unassuming 19th-century white-brick row house in the historic area of Alexandria, Virginia, outside Washington, not realizing it was part of a horrible chapter in U.S. history.

A sign out front indicates it used to be the Franklin and Armfield Slave Office, one of the major centers of the U.S. domestic slave trade in the 19th century.

Today, it has become the Freedom House Museum, which looks at a brutal past but also on the accomplishments of African Americans in Virginia.

Beginning in 1828, two slave traders, Isaac Franklin and John Armfield, used the building and three adjoining lots as a holding pen or jail for thousands of enslaved Blacks.

The enslaved were brought to the pen from local plantations where they had picked tobacco until the soil became exhausted. Then they were either bought directly or remained at the jail until they were shipped south to Natchez, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana, where they were sold at even higher prices to pick cotton and harvest sugarcane.

The slave jail grew to become one of the largest slave-trading companies in the United States until 1836.

“One of the scary things is that they created this almost perfect model for trafficking human beings,” said Audrey Davis, the Freedom House Museum director who also heads Alexandria’s Black History Museum. “They would buy the enslaved people at a good price and bring them to Alexandria and then sell them again for more profit.”

The Freedom House Museum contains exhibits that show the atrociousness of slavery, but it also looks at the accomplishments of Black Americans in Alexandria. The museum recently reopened after being closed for renovations.

“The exhibitions talk about Alexandria’s role in the domestic slave trade, but also stress that African Americans are not defined by slavery,” Davis told VOA. “We have many years of perseverance from surviving enslavement and want to make sure that people are getting the full view of the African American experience in Alexandria.”

At the museum entrance, a sign explains, “This exhibit honors the memory of the enslaved people who created our nation.” And on an entryway wall, some of the names and ages are listed of the more than 8,500 enslaved people who went through the doors of the jail.

Treyvon Harris, 14, from Fort Washington, Maryland, scanned the names of the young and old, but stopped when he saw a 1-year-old child.

“That means a baby could be a slave for his whole life and even be taken away from his family,” he said in disbelief.

The slave pen took up an entire block and contained a kitchen, infirmary, dining area and outdoor courtyard for exercise. Since the traders knew healthier and better-looking enslaved people would bring higher prices, they were given a little more food. A tailor shop at the complex also provided new clothes for them to wear at the auction market.

“The U.S. had a large and growing population of enslaved labor,” explained Cassandra Newby-Alexander, a professor of Africa diaspora studies at Norfolk State University in Virginia. “The buying and selling was a big business that also fueled other industries, like steamships and schooners that transported enslaved people.”

Davis said the reaction to the slave pen in Alexandria was mixed at the time, with some people believing slavery was wrong and others accepting it as an important part of the economy.

“People in Alexandria certainly knew what was going on, even though there were high walls around it,” Davis said. “They would have seen the trafficking of human beings by the nearby Potomac River where the people were boarded on boats.”

Several domestic slave trading firms operated the pen until it was liberated in 1861 by anti-slavery Union troops during the U.S. Civil War. The pen was turned into a jail for Confederate soldiers and unruly Union troops.

Today, all that remains of the slave jail is the house. However, Davis said she doesn’t want Freedom House to be defined just by the period of enslavement.

“While we must understand what happened during slavery, it is not the only defining moment of the African American people,” Davis said. “African Americans have had amazing achievements that have helped our culture and society.”

An exhibit called “Determined: The 400-Year Struggle for Black Equality” shares inspiring stories of extraordinary individuals who struggled for equality.

In Alexandria, they included Albert Johnson, the first Black physician allowed to practice in the city, and Shirley Marshall-Lee, the first African American certified scuba diver.

Visitor Ingrid Schoenburg from Fairfax, Virginia, said, “What is so compelling is that the museum shows the power of the human spirit when faced with adversity.”

Lakisha Jones from Houston, Texas, agreed.

“This place is a reminder of what our people went through,” said Jones, who is African American, “and how they persevered and continue to do so today.”

Source: Voice of America

BAMAKO, MALI — Gunmen have attacked a checkpoint just 70 kilometers from Bamako, Mali’s capital, leaving six dead, in a sign of increasing insecurity in Mali as the French army withdraws from the country and tensions rise between the U.N. and Mali’s military government.

Mali’s security ministry posted on Facebook that Security Minister Daoud Aly Mohammedine visited the town of Zantiguila, where the attack occurred Friday. The ministry said the six dead included three civilians and three members of the security forces.

Zantiguila is on the main road connecting Bamako with Ségou, 240 kilometers to the north.

Mali has been fighting an Islamist insurgency for a decade and has seen increasing insecurity in recent months in the center and north of the country as the French army has gradually withdrawn from Mali following a breakdown in France-Mali relations and concerns about Mali working with Russian mercenaries.

Tensions have also mounted in recent weeks between Mali’s military government and the U.N. mission to Mali, MINUSMA, with Mali refusing to allow the U.N. to carry out human rights investigations as part of its mandate.

Following the arrest of 49 soldiers from Ivory Coast, who came to Mali as support for a U.N. contingent, the Malian government Thursday suspended all rotations of U.N. forces in the country until further notice. MINUSMA has supported the Malian army in maintaining security in much of the country since its creation in 2013.

Attacks near Bamako, Mali’s southern capital, are usually rare, but the security ministry also announced an attack in Fana, Mali, just 130 kilometers from Bamako, in June.

Source: Voice of America

KHARTOUM — Sudanese authorities have declared an overnight curfew in two towns in southeastern Blue Nile state, close to the border with Ethiopia, after several days of tribal clashes that they said had left 31 people dead and 39 injured.

Clashes spread in several towns from Wednesday after the killing of a farmer, before security forces made arrests and brought the situation under control, a statement from Blue Nile state’s regional government said.

The statement said 16 shops had been destroyed and a night curfew was declared in the towns of Damazin and Roseires.

There have been sporadic outbreaks of violence in several regions of Sudan, including eastern coastal regions and western Darfur, despite a nationwide peace deal signed by some rebel groups in 2020.

The most powerful faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, a rebel group active in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, did not sign the deal.

Sudan’s military seized power from a transitional, civilian-led government in October 2021, triggering mass anti-military protests that have continued for more than eight months.

Source: Voice of America