Month: June 2022

 Step into Yuet Tung China Works, Hong Kong’s last remaining hand-painted porcelain factory, and you find yourself surrounded by stacks of dinnerware, each piece painstakingly decorated by hand with vibrant motifs of flowers, fruits and animals. 

Joseph Tso, the third-generation owner of the factory, and his small team are among the few people in Hong Kong who have mastered the traditional technique of painting “guangcai,” or Canton porcelain. 

It is a fading art in this modern metropolis, as fewer young people are willing to put in the time and effort required to master the craft or to work at the factory full-time. 

“The business environment in Hong Kong is not suitable for labor-intensive industries,” Tso said. “Hong Kong’s traditional handicraft industry is gradually declining. It will eventually disappear.” 

Guangcai, which comes from the nearby Chinese city of Guangzhou, is characterized by an overglaze technique in which the painter sketches a design on white porcelain and then fills it in with color using thin brushes before firing the piece in a kiln. 

Tso’s grandfather established the factory in Hong Kong’s Kowloon City in 1928. It rose to prominence over the years, becoming famous for its delicate craftmanship and custom dinnerware. 

The factory is known for its Canton rose porcelain painted with a pigment called “xihong,” which means “Western red.” Its ingredients include lead oxide, quartz and gold dust. 

“Hong Kong’s export sector was booming from the 1960s to the 1980s, and many well-known department stores came to buy products,” Tso said. “Foreign trade firms would bring us business from (American) department stores.” 

The factory sometimes paints family crests on dinnerware for foreign customers. 

Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong before the city was returned to China in 1997, visited Yuet Tung China Works to buy some porcelain before returning to Britain. 

The factory is an important part of Hong Kong’s history, said Yim Wai-wai, founding president of The Hong Kong Ceramics Research Society. 

“The porcelain factory breathed at the same pace as the development of Hong Kong,” said Yim. “If it ceases to exist, it will be an immeasurable loss.”

Give us 5 minutes, and we’ll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Valneva’s VLS.PA COVID-19 vaccine was endorsed by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on Thursday, although the French company’s contract with the European Commission to supply the dose hangs in the balance.  

Valneva has been trying to salvage the deal with the European Commission after its vaccine program was hit by delays in its marketing application due to requests from the EMA for more information.  

The original deal was for up to 60 million doses. But due to application delays and countries in Europe already having excess supply, the Commission has signalled that it wants to amend the agreement for a much smaller number of doses, Valneva said earlier this month.   

But, according to Valneva CEO Thomas Lingelbach, if those volumes are confirmed, that would not be enough to sustain the company’s vaccine program.  

A Valneva spokesperson said on Wednesday the contract continues to be discussed by the Commission and member states.  

Valneva’s vaccine is the sixth shot to be recommended by the EMA for COVID-19. A final decision on the vaccine’s approval is expected shortly by the Commission.  

Valneva’s Paris-listed shares jumped around 22% on Thursday.   

Britain cancelled its Valneva vaccine contract in 2021, although the company has secured approvals in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Valneva’s vaccine uses technology already employed for decades in shots against polio, influenza and hepatitis. The company has bet it will win over people who had refused COVID vaccines that used mRNA and other new technologies.  

But demand for a new crop of COVID vaccines remains uncertain. U.S.-based Novavax’s NVAX.O shot uses a traditional technology like Valneva’s but has had limited take up in Europe, with about 220,000 doses administered out of 12.6 million distributed in the region.  

Some vaccine makers, such as AstraZeneca AZN.L and Johnson & Johnson JNJ.N, have warned of a global COVID vaccine glut.

Give us 5 minutes, and we’ll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

The battles between Ethiopian government-aligned troops and Tigrayan forces may have stopped, but herders in western Afar region are left fighting for survival.

The record drought in the Horn of Africa that has killed millions of livestock has been made worse by landmines left by combatants.

Herder Hassen Arebti Hassen’s 4-year-old daughter was injured by a landmine, and the weapons are also killing his animals.

He said landmines are everywhere, and many animals have stepped on them and died.

Landmines and other explosives are so common in the area that some locals use the wood from their crates as building materials.

Nine-year-old Ali Omer said his 10-year-old friend was killed by a landmine while they were herding goats together.

“We were just there to take care of the goats, but my friend died,” he said.

Omer said his friend was playing, throwing stones at the landmine, but then he picked it up and threw it to the ground.

Omer was also injured.

His father, Oumer Hadeto, said landmines make them all afraid to collect water, despite the drought.

Hadeto said the community doesn’t know what to do, and he has to spend a lot of money to buy food for his family and animals. The landmines need to be removed, he added.

After speaking with locals, VOA was unable to establish which side in the conflict was responsible for laying the mines.

Bekele Gonfa, executive director of a nonprofit in Addis Ababa that supports landmine victims, said people in mined areas of Ethiopia, like Chifra, need help.

“Number one is the medical treatment. And then, they’re provided with psychosocial support, which includes counseling. Particularly, that’s what the organization is basically engaged in. The public and the community [have] to be given risk education in order to really keep themselves away from the mines,” Gonfa said.

But with the ongoing drought, people in Chifra have little choice but to risk landmines if they want to find food for their animals and collect water for their survival.

Six protesters were shot and killed in Sudan on Thursday, medics said, as large crowds took to the streets despite heavy security and a communications blackout to rally against the military leadership that seized power eight months ago.

In central Khartoum, security forces fired tear gas and water cannon as they tried to prevent swelling crowds from marching toward the presidential palace, witnesses said.

They estimated the crowds in Khartoum and its twin cities of Omdurman and Bahri to be at least in the tens of thousands, the largest this year. In Omdurman, witnesses reported tear gas and gunfire as security forces prevented protesters from crossing into Khartoum.

The protests in the capital and other cities marked the third anniversary of huge demonstrations during the uprising that overthrew longtime autocratic ruler Omar al-Bashir and led to a power-sharing arrangement between civilian groups and the military.

Last October the military, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, toppled the transitional government, triggering rallies demanding the army quit politics.

Some of Thursday’s protesters carried banners calling for justice for those killed in previous demonstrations. Others chanted, “Burhan, Burhan, back to the barracks and hand over your companies,” — a reference to the military’s economic holdings.

Earlier, protesters barricaded some of Khartoum’s main thoroughfares with stones and burning tires.

June 30 also marks the day Bashir took power in a coup in 1989.

“Either we get to the presidential palace and remove al-Burhan or we won’t return home,” said a 21-year-old female student protesting in Bahri.

It was the first time in months of protests against the October coup that internet and phone services had been cut. After the military takeover, extended internet blackouts were imposed in an apparent effort to weaken the protest movement.

Staff at Sudan’s two private sector telecom companies, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities had ordered them to shut down the internet once again on Thursday.

Bridges closed

Phone calls within Sudan were also cut, and security forces closed bridges over the Nile linking Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri — another step typically taken on big protest days to limit the movement of marchers.

On Wednesday, medics aligned with the protest movement said security forces shot and killed a child in Bahri during neighborhood protests that have been taking place daily.

Thursday’s six deaths — four in Omdurman, one in Khartoum and another child in Bahri — brought the number of protesters killed since the coup to 109. There were many injuries and attempts by security forces to storm hospitals in Khartoum where they were being treated, the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors said.

There was no immediate comment from Sudanese authorities.

The United Nations envoy in Sudan, Volker Perthes, this week called on authorities to abide by a pledge to protect the right of peaceful assembly.

“Violence against protesters will not be tolerated,” he said.

Military leaders said they dissolved the government in October because of political paralysis, though they have yet to appoint a prime minister. International financial support agreed upon with the transitional government was frozen after the coup, and an economic crisis has deepened.

Burhan said on Wednesday that the armed forces were looking forward to the day when an elected government could take over, but this could be done only through consensus or elections, not protests.

Mediation efforts led by the United Nations and the African Union have so far yielded little progress.

Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in Thursday as the newest U.S. Supreme Court justice — becoming the first Black woman ever to serve on the high court.

The 51-year-old Jackson took the constitutional oath from U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts and the judicial oath from retiring 83-year-old Justice Stephen Breyer, whom she replaces. Jackson served as a clerk for Breyer early in her legal career.

Jackson’s husband, Dr. Patrick Jackson, held two bibles as the oaths were administered.

After she completed her oaths, Roberts told Jackson, “On behalf of all of the members of the court, I am pleased to welcome Justice Jackson to the court and to our common calling.” The ceremony was streamed live on the court’s website.

Breyer informed President Joe Biden on Wednesday that his retirement would take effect Thursday after the court issued its last two opinions before taking a summer recess. The court’s next term begins Oct. 3.

Jackson is the 116th justice, sixth woman and third Black person to serve on the Supreme Court since its 1789 founding.

Biden appointed Jackson last year to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit after she spent eight years as a federal district judge. Following a series of committee hearings, the U.S. Senate confirmed Jackson’s nomination in April, by a 53-47 mostly party-line vote that included support from three Republicans.

Jackson’s addition to the bench will not change the ideological alignment of the court, which remains 6-3 in favor of conservatives appointed by Republican presidents.

She becomes a justice as public opinion polls indicate a record low in public confidence in the Supreme Court after a number of unpopular decisions, including last week’s reversal of the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, which had made abortion legal across the United States.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

Since the discovery Monday of 67 people crammed into an abandoned truck on the outskirts of San Antonio, Texas, the death toll has risen. The investigation continues while survivors fight for their lives at local hospitals and authorities try to identify the dead. VOA News reporter Jaime Moreno has the story from San Antonio.  Camera: Jaime Moreno 

The African Continental Free Trade Area has been operating for more than a year with the aim of cutting red tape to expand inter-African trade and lift millions of people out of poverty. But the largest trade pact in the world, in terms of member countries, has seen slow progress and mixed results. Anne Nzouankeu reports from Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in this report narrated by Moki Edwin Kindzeka.
Videographer: Anne Nzouankeu

As Europe seeks to wean itself off Russian natural gas, Algeria, Niger, and Nigeria have revived a decades-old, multi-billion-dollar gas project.

The Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline (TSGP) could send up to 30 billion cubic meters of gas per year to Europe from Nigeria to Algeria and on to Europe. Analysts note the project faces many challenges.

Nigeria’s petroleum minister, Timipre Sylva, said funding for the project will come from Europe and that authorities are already holding talks with European firms and countries.

Sylva said a committee set up by the countries was already conducting a feasibility study to build a 4,128-kilometer-long gas pipeline from southern Nigeria to Algeria via Niger.

The landmark decision to revive the project followed a two-day joint meeting held in Abuja last week by petroleum authorities from the three African nations.

The committee will meet at the end of July.

Revival of the project was lauded by the African Energy Chamber, a group that promotes cross-border cooperation in the continent’s energy industry.

More praise comes from Abuja-based energy expert Emmanuel Afiami.

“It actually shows that Africa is trying as much as possible to position itself to possibly see how well they can help Europe cover the energy demand issues,” Afiami said. “Beyond this, this particular project will actually mean a lot for the three African countries involved, the benefits to local economies.”

The initiative was initially conceived more than 40 years ago but renewed interest comes amid Russia’s war on Ukraine and efforts by Europe to slash Russia’a energy income.

African energy experts like Afiami say that with demand for natural gas rising, the TSGP project could transform Africa’s energy future if properly implemented.

Public finance analyst Isaac Botti said political will has been a challenge and still can be.

“For me I think the major challenge is the political will of these countries to embark on this huge deal,” Botti said. “For example, the pipeline project between Nigeria and Ghana which has also been stalled over time was as a result of political will, not unavailability of resources to do that. Part of the problem is also that we are too reliant on easy money.”

In April, EU delegates met with Nigerian officials in Abuja and held talks about diversifying Europe’s sources of energy.

Earlier in June, Nigerian authorities directed state-run oil company Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to implement a deal on a gas pipeline to Europe through Morocco.

Authorities are also planning to transport more gas from southern to northern Nigeria and build a major gas turbine in Abuja.