Day: September 7, 2022

Malawi’s president has ordered the Reserve Bank of Malawi to prioritize buying fuel in any foreign currency the country can secure to deal with a fuel shortage. The shortage has forced Malawi’s drivers to wait hours in line, or to buy fuel smuggled in from neighboring Mozambique.

The scarcity of fuel in Malawi is largely attributed to a shortage of foreign exchange, especially U.S. dollars.

The shortage has forced Malawi’s drivers to wait hours in line, sometimes overnight, or to purchase fuel illegally smuggled in from Mozambique.

The problem is more rampant in central and northern Malawi where many pump stations have run dry for weeks.

Clement Chinoko is a journalist working for the daily Nation newspaper in the capital Lilongwe, where fuel remains in short supply. “It has been a hustle. The last time I fueled I had to wait for about three hours in Lilongwe City Centre. This is the main business area of the capital city. That was three days ago. Today, I am back on the queue as well, hoping that I am going to be serviced.”

Another motorist Matilda Chibambo from Blantyre, says she had to abandon her car on her way to northern Malawi.

“I was supposed to be in the meeting in Mzuzu yesterday, that is Wednesday, but until now I am in Salima, I am stuck because there is no fuel. I am trying to board a public bus but I have also noted that the bus fare has increased. So, the situation is so, so frustrating and I am so angry right now.”

Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera said Wednesday the government is taking steps to improve the fuel supply.

“I know that the current shortage of fuel is adversely affecting manufacturing, businesses, work, and domestic life, and I want to assure you that we are seized of this matter to ensure that there is product in the service stations in the short term, while we work on the long-term forex issues that are at the root of this problem.”

Malawi obtains most of its foreign exchange earnings from tobacco. However, statistics from the Auction Holding Limited show that this year tobacco crop raked in $182 million, compared to $197 million last year, a decrease of 7.7 percent.

Fuel company Petroleum Importers Limited told reporters this week that it is struggling to bring in fuel because it lacks the $22 million in foreign currency required each month.

President Chakwera said the government is working with banks to acquire the needed funds.

“So, as we speak, we have therefore already secured $28 million dollars from local banks for this purpose, and we are in pursuit of another $50 million dollar facility for the same, on top of instructions the Reserve Bank has received to prioritize fuel procurement in the allocation of any forex we secure.”

The president said imports have resumed and the country is tapping its reserves.

“So, as we speak, we have over 6 million liters being brought into the country, while at the same time we have doubled the daily distribution of the product we already have in our reserves to ease the burden.”

Motorists like Chikono and Chibambo hope the government can find a long-term solution, like increasing the export base to curb the shortage of foreign exchange.

Source: Voice of America

When Dapo Olorunyomi, publisher of the Nigerian newspaper the Premium Times, was in school in the 1970s, he remembers receiving in the mail “glossy Chinese magazines that were sent freely, celebrating and glamorizing China’s great progress.”

China’s media influence strategy in Nigeria has grown more aggressive since then, Olorunyomi said.

Nigeria is the most vulnerable country to Beijing’s global media influence, a Freedom House report released Thursday found. Freedom House is a Washington-based non-governmental organization focused on human rights and democracy.

Globally, China’s campaign to influence global media is intensifying, with efforts increasing between 2019 and 2021 in 18 out of 30 democracies analyzed by Freedom House.

The report looked at not only Beijing’s efforts to influence media in democracies but also the response from those countries, which were then rated on resilience.

And while the intensity of China’s efforts was marked “high” or “very high” in 16 countries, the report — Beijing’s Global Media Influence: Authoritarian Expansion and the Power of Democratic Resilience — found plenty of pushback.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses a range of tactics, Freedom House found, including the mass distribution of state-produced content, harassment and intimidation of local outlets, targeted disinformation, and the use of cyberbullying and fake social media accounts.

It’s main goal, Freedom House says, is to influence public opinion in its favor, sometimes as a way to ensure its investments in the target countries.

“The Chinese government is using more sophisticated, more covert and more coercive tactics, like cyberbullying, or cyberattacks, or just phone calls to journalists, to try to pressure and influence coverage in countries around the world,” said Sarah Cook, Freedom House’s research director for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and one of the report’s authors.

China’s Embassy in Washington referred VOA to a recent comment made by China’s Foreign Ministry. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning dismissed Freedom House’s report as false and “driven by ulterior motives.”

“Telling the story of the Communist Party of China [CPC] and presenting a true, multi-dimensional and panoramic view of China to the world is part and parcel of the job of Chinese media and foreign service,” Mao Ning said. “We will continue to tell the world the story of China.”

Freedom House found pushback from a combination of “policymakers, news outlets, civic groups, or social media users.”

The response varies from country to country, said Angeli Datt, a China analyst for Freedom House and one of the report’s authors.

“In some countries it was as simple as publishing critical news coverage and in others, like Taiwan, it was civil society organizing mass demonstrations of thousands of people against CCP infiltration into the news environment,” Datt wrote in an email to VOA. “The depth of regional and linguistic variety shows that resilience to CCP influence has truly gone global.”

Despite that resilience, the extent of China’s attempts to sway public opinion through more favorable coverage is something that countries need to be proactive in combating, she said.

Researchers point to Chile as an example of that resilience.

Beijing’s campaign in Chile began as a strategy to improve its public image in an economically important country, according to Sascha Hannig. The researcher at Chile’s pro-democracy foundation Instituto Desafíos de la Democracia contributed to the Freedom House report.

Over time, “it became more controversial and aggressive,” Hannig said, with a campaign that appeared to be trying to challenge Chilean democracy and promote the Chinese model.

Although most Chileans in 2019 and 2020 held a positive view of China, according to Freedom House, skepticism and criticism of China’s aggressive diplomacy is growing among politicians and journalists. Public opinion of China has been on the decline since the coronavirus pandemic, Hannig said.

A stronger commitment to democracy and press freedom in Chile also helps mitigate the potential threats.

‘Polluted information’

In Nigeria, which Freedom House says is most vulnerable to influence efforts, China has made significant economic investments, including in infrastructure.

But recent authoritarian shifts and declining press freedom in the West African country make Nigeria more susceptible to Beijing’s efforts, the report found.

Part of that influence comes through content-sharing agreements between Chinese-run media operations and local media, which help Chinese content reach large numbers of Nigerians.

StarTimes, a Chinese company that says it partners with more than 200 African media outlets, plays a big role in Nigeria’s digital television infrastructure, Freedom House says. StarTimes provides cheap subscriptions that “favor Chinese state media over other international broadcasters,” the report said.

The Nigerian Embassy in Washington did not reply to VOA’s request for comment.

In many cases globally, a media outlet will flag that content as provided by China, but analysts say audiences may not be aware that the content, often presented as news, lacks editorial independence.

VOA offers content to affiliate stations globally but the Congress-funded broadcaster has a firewall and other measures ensuring editorial independence and integrity.

“Paid-for content often doesn’t undergo editorial scrutiny, and falsehoods or misleading information is published by local outlets which people trust,” Freedom House’s Datt told VOA.

This proliferation of content-sharing agreements is concerning to Idayat Hassan, the director of the pro-democracy research group the Centre for Democracy and Development, in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.

“Nigerians end up consuming mostly polluted information in an era of information disorder,” Hassan said, because it can be easier for Nigerian outlets to just repost articles from Chinese outlets like Xinhua.

Huawei — a Chinese technology company that the report says has “close CCP ties” and a “record of building censorship and surveillance systems” in China and elsewhere — also occupies a prominent space in Nigeria’s digital infrastructure, according to the report.

“That’s where the danger really lies,” Abuja-based Olorunyomi told VOA, referring to Chinese influence over Nigeria’s digital infrastructure.

To Cook, media infrastructure is at risk of becoming the new frontier of China’s efforts.

With few exceptions, like WeChat and a Chinese-owned news aggregator app in Nigeria called Opera News, Beijing has not paid much attention to influencing content dissemination infrastructure. Instead, it has predominantly focused on manipulating content itself, the report found.

When it comes to bigger components of digital infrastructure provided by Chinese-owned companies, “the level of manipulation is really unclear and doesn’t seem to be strong at the moment, but the potential is very much there,” Cook said.

Countries have not been proactive in addressing that vulnerability, Cook said.

For more than 15 years, democracy has been on the decline around the world, Datt said. Without strong action to shore up democratic institutions, the CCP can take advantage of those flaws.

Nigeria, for instance, is slowly adopting CCP-style internet controls, which end up exposing the country to more Chinese influence, she said.

For Cook, the lack of measures to prevent influence over media infrastructure is another hole that Beijing could exploit.

“Infrastructure — that’s the future,” she said. “Now’s the time to put in the safeguards.”

Source: Voice of America

Nigerian police said 43 people who were abducted from a mosque in northwestern Zamfara state have been released, while one died in captivity after being tortured. Police say they are still searching for armed men responsible, who disguised themselves as fellow worshippers when they invaded the mosque last week during Friday prayers.

Zamfara State Police spokesperson Mohammed Shehu confirmed to VOA in a phone call Thursday the release of the abductees.

He said police authorities have deployed officers around the state to prevent more attacks from taking place. Shehu did not comment, though, on whether a ransom was paid to secure their release of the abductees.

“They were released,” Shehu said. “We have deployed our operatives everywhere, and they’re working tirelessly to ensure that we contain the activity of armed banditry and kidnapping.”

The worshippers were kidnapped on September 2 as they gathered for the weekly juma’at prayer in the village of Zugu.

Gunmen disguised as fellow worshippers invaded the mosque, shot sporadically and herded them into the bush.

Relatives and local residents of the Zugu village said they jointly raised and paid the kidnappers the equivalent of $12,000, and they also gave them many gallons of petrol before the captives were released.

Saidu Umar, a relative of one of the released abductees, said that initially the abductors asked for about $82,000, or 35 million naira.

But, Umar said, residents bargained and gave the abductors 5 million naira, and the worshippers were then released. Umar said some of the captives were wounded and unable to walk, so the residents went to the mosque with motorbikes to carry them away.

Nigerian authorities have been trying to stem violence and kidnapping in the country’s northwestern and central states for years and strongly oppose making ransom payments.

Deployment of troops in the affected regions has stretched security forces thin. But the government said it is making some progress. In March, authorities said air bombardments that lasted three days killed more than 200 bandits in Niger State.

Last month, the Nigerian Air Force said another 55 bandits were killed across central and northwestern states.

However, Patrick Agbambu, founder of Security Watch Africa Initiatives, said authorities cannot rest on previous victories.

“Crime business is a dynamic business. It changes forms at any given time,” Agbambu said. “While you’re recording some success, the criminals are trying to devise other means to outwit you, so as we celebrate these successes it also calls for more vigilance from the security agencies.”

Agbambu also said citizens must take caution against paying ransom to kidnappers.

“Nobody wants to experience such,” he said. “I understand the desperation of the relatives of these victims in wanting to pay ransom, but the more ransoms are paid, the more kidnapping or abduction will continue because it becomes a lucrative business.”

For now, the released abductees will try to recover from their experience, while the village and authorities remain more vigilant.

Source: Voice of America

TRANSCRIPT

The Inside Story: Crypto’s Currency

Episode 56 – September 8, 2022

Show Open:

Unidentified Narrator: Invisible money mined out of thin air. So, what is crypto currency? And how does it work? Why has crypto’s market value been a series of peaks and valleys? Plus, environmentalists warn crypto’s creation destroys the planet. Now – The Inside Story: Crypto’s currency.

MICHELLE QUINN, VOA Silicon Valley Bureau Chief: Hi. I’m Michelle Quinn, VOA Silicon Valley Bureau Chief, here overlooking San Francisco Bay, with the Golden Gate Bridge behind me.

Across the Bay, San Francisco’s skyline is populated with the world’s technology giants.

The City that birthed tech giants like Google and Microsoft is also home to burgeoning crypto currency companies like CoinBase among others.

Like the tech giants that surround them, the crypto companies hope to change the world.

So, we’re going to take you inside cryptocurrency — how it’s mined, how it’s used, how it gains and loses value, and the impact crypto mining is having on the environment.

Recent fluctuation in values fluctuate has raised concern among consumers about crypto’s risks. But many investors are enthusiastic about the potential digital currency offers.

MICHELLE QUINN: James Wisdom, a Chicago art instructor and tattoo artist, regularly goes to his local grocery store to buy Bitcoin, also known by its trading symbol, BTC.

James Wisdom, Bitcoin Investor: Being able to go to Coinme conveniently and to buy BTC, especially where I get my groceries is, I think, the future of capitalism.

MICHELLE QUINN: Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether. The digital currency craze has swept the world. Countries are hitching their futures to it. Ads pitch crypto as an investment for the brave and bold.

While cryptocurrencies are not usually used to buy things that has not curtailed their appeal. For some, it taps into egalitarian ideals.

Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican: It gives access to global finances, to buying and selling to transferring value instantaneously, no matter where you are. That’s remarkable. And then there is the advantage of freedom. There’s nobody in charge. That terrifies government decision-makers.

MICHELLE QUINN: Crypto has inspired many first-time investors, especially those skeptical of traditional investing. Cleve Mesidor is with the Blockchain Foundation, an educational nonprofit.

Cleve Mesidor, Blockchain Foundation: For newbies, I tell them, ‘You should not speculate. You need to have skin in the game.’ Decide not to buy Starbucks for a week. Whatever that amount is, that’s what you should start your investment in. Then learn.

MICHELLE QUINN: Steve Leke told his parents to invest in crypto when he was 10 years old.

Steve Leke, Investor: Yeah, still pretty young, but I love to read about business and what’s going on in the tech world.

MICHELLE QUINN: His parents didn’t take his advice. But Steve’s uncle was buying crypto, so he did too. Riding the crypto roller coaster wasn’t easy.

Steve Leke, Investor: It was super hard because every day I find myself checking it, found myself looking where I’m at. And the mental toll was a lot.

MICHELLE QUINN: Now 17 and heading to college, Leke sold his holdings before the drop that has already erased more than $700 billion in crypto values.

Steve Leke, Investor: I do think that cryptocurrency is very good because of the conversation about decentralization, and that kind of stuff has been very helpful when it comes to having a better understanding of not only the economy but also politics.

MICHELLE QUINN: Government regulators are raising alarms about scams and investors who have lost millions.

Aaron Klein, Brookings Institution: There are real reasons to be concerned that there are elements in the crypto sphere that are designed expressly to take advantage of consumers.

MICHELLE QUINN: Wisdom appreciates that the automated teller where he buys Bitcoin limits purchases to $2,900 a day.

James Wisdom, Bitcoin Investor: You could easily overdo it.

MICHELLE QUINN: He stays involved in online crypto communities that are bullish about investing.

James Wisdom, Bitcoin investor: I believe. You know what I mean? I believe. I’m going to hold on to what I have now.

MICHELLE QUINN: Only time will tell if that strategy works.

MICHELLE QUINN: For many, using digital currency represents a shift in how you think about your finances, from daily transactions to long term savings and investments.

To try to break down the business and the barriers, I talked to Christine Parlour from the University of California Berkley about the challenges of making crypto currency user friendly.

Christine Parlour, University of California Berkley: Cryptocurrencies are just digital ways of transferring value and information. That’s sort of the way to think about them. The whole crypto and the currency part is just almost like a marketing ploy. These are not currencies.

MICHELLE QUINN: But is there an easy way to think about it like what I can do with it or think about it?

Christine Parlour, University of California Berkley: One way to think about them, and it’s kind of a little bit simplistic because these can be complicated, and they can cover a wide variety of things is to think about airline miles. So airline miles or something that the airlines give you that are valuable. Well, they could be digitized. And if they could be traded and transferred in a very easy way, then they kind of look a little bit like some of the cryptocurrencies out there. They’re a claim to something. They represent something and they can be moved around very easily from person to person.

One of the ways in which cryptocurrencies are being used is essentially being used as a payment method. So we think of payments as essentially being sort of just a you know, we just pay for stuff we just don’t really think about the backstory, what’s behind it, how much it costs. Things like credit cards, even if you don’t run up the debt, actually are super expensive. Why? Because the merchants are paying between 2, 10 percent, whatever, to the credit card companies and ultimately, those come back into the prices that you pay.

So, one of the innovations that we’re seeing in cryptocurrencies this whole class of things called stable coins are basically designed as a way of very, very cheap payment rails. They’re also designed to transfer money internationally at a really low cost. A lot of people send remittances, so they go and they work in a foreign country, and they send money back to family grandmother or whatever. These are really, really, expensive. remittance rails, and we’re talking about essentially attacks on people who don’t have a lot of money. So, one of the innovations potential innovations in crypto is just to reduce the cost of transferring value through these things called stable coins.

MICHELLE QUINN: A lot of people have invested and have lost in the past, particularly the past four months. How do you look at that in terms of what it means for people or also what it means for the trajectory of cryptocurrency?

Christine Parlour, University of California Berkley: So the technology is not going anywhere. So, this is not it’s not something that’s just going to explode and poof and we move on to something else. it’s here to stay, one. Two, if you think about most of the ventures that cryptocurrencies are based on so typically cryptocurrency is issued in the context of some little enterprise out there. These are typically quite small. So the types of returns that you should expect and the success rates that you should expect a much more similar to things like venture capital. And we know that venture capital returns, there are a couple of really, really, big hits. Wow, I invested in Google, but they’re kazillion companies that just go belly up. And so, cryptocurrencies have really that kind of risk return profile. So that’s a very, very specific you know, that’s how you should sort of think about them as opposed to say, equities, which are based by cash based on cash flows.

MICHELLE QUINN: What do you think about the ability of cryptocurrency to bring more people into the financial, have financial tools?

Christine Parlour, University of California Berkley: So, the line between cryptocurrency and general digital innovation is a little bit kind of fuzzy. If you think about, say, for example, the success of E cash in Bangladesh, it has been absolutely astounding. This is a digital essentially a phone-based way of transferring value. It was backed by essentially the central bank. The adoption has just been absolutely exponential. And many, many people who previously it was too expensive for them to enterinto the traditional banking system. Now could do it essentially through smartphones or phones, not smartphones. And so we see more and more examples of this using technology to let people have access to very, very needed financial services.

EXPLAINER

Kant Trivedi, COO Blockchain USA: Unidentified Narrator: So this is our facility here in Niagara Falls, New York. We’re converting this facility from what was an industrial building. To a data center to mine bitcoins.

At the time this factory was being used to actually strip down for scrap metal. Prior to that this was actually a power generation plant where they were using coal and fossil fuels to generate unfortunately dirty power at the time.

Blockfusion is a blockchain infrastructure company that uses renewable energy

At the facility we actually mine Bitcoin. So traditionally, people would think about mining Bitcoin or like mining a resource, right? Very expensive equipment guys with hard hats underneath the earth trying to get resources.

In this particular case, we’re mining Bitcoin and while there we are leveraging a expert expensive hardware to do so. The resource is really about how quickly you can actually solve a particular algorithm, mathematic equation on the blockchain to be able to go and obtain more Bitcoin.

And now I’m going to take you into our Bitcoin mining facility where you’ll see the hardware actually processing and mining for Bitcoin.

This is our control room, just before you actually go into the mining facility itself. So I’m about to put some headphones on just because it’s extremely loud in the mining facility.

So I’m going to show you the miners themselves. These are not individual mining, you’ll see the actual computers themselves and then I’ll take you into the exhaustion.

You’ll see a we’ll be in the hot and the cold out so the hot hour it expels all the hot air and the cold out which has a cold air goes through the actual computers themselves in the fans tackle the exhaust. One of the things that I wanted to talk about was each one of these computers do not work individually. They actually work together.

They hold together the resources and the processing power like a supercomputer to be able to do the algorithms to actually be able to mine one Bitcoin.

The total miners that we have here at the facility is about 2600 We’re actually anticipate that by the time we build out the entire facility will be somewhere between 12,500 to 15,000 units this facility here in Niagara Falls.

We are five miles away from the Robert Moses hydro plant, absolutely critical for us when we chose this location that if we were going to consume energy, we want to make sure that it was renewable.

So, as we’re looking at building this facility out into a data center, that was a critical factor in our decision making.

So, the Robert Moses hydroelectric plant is the fourth largest hydroelectric plant in America. We’re in Zone A our property is located in Zone A which is about five miles from the actual dam itself and the plant so we’re in an ideal location to actually have most most if not all of our energy from that.

One of the things that we do at the facility is firstly, when there’s actually peak usage for power, so that’s where if the grid themselves for more power back will actually shut down our operations are curtailing back to actually provide that power back to the local community as required.

MICHELLE QUINN: Crypto’s emergence as a viable industry is has many of America’s states vying for a chunk of it, hoping it produces jobs for its citizens.

Central Texas is home to the largest bitcoin mining facility in North America.

And while it has produced jobs, critics warn of volatility ahead.

Our Deana Mitchell takes us to Rockdale, Texas.

Steve Pruett, Rockdale citizen: My dad worked there for 30 years. I worked at the generating plant that was across the street that supplied the power.

DEANA MITCHELL, VOA Correspondent: Like many residents of this small Texas town, Steve Pruett and his family were hit hard with the closing of the aluminum smelting factory in 2008 and more recently, the power plant. More than 1,000 jobs were lost.

But a new industry has arrived in town: crypto mining.

Rockdale is now home to two bitcoin mining data centers.

Towns across Texas are seeing mining operations set up, especially after China outlawed crypto mining. Interest in the volatile cryptocurrency market has soared in recent years, even as many have lost money trading it.

Rockdale welcomes the crypto miners.

John King, Rockdale Mayor: We’re open for business, come on in. If you’ve got some supporting business or anything else, we’re here and we’ll work with you.

DEANA MITCHELL: Bitcoin mining is the process in which computers race to solve complicated math problems to verify transactions on the blockchain and earn bitcoin in return.

But the surge of crypto mining plants around the U.S. is raising a host of environmental and financial concerns.

Whinstone, based in this town, is the biggest bitcoin mining operation in North America. Chad Everett Harris, a Whinstone executive, says there are several reasons he came here.

Chad Everett Harris, Whinstone: Texas’ deregulated market, the government itself encourages it, they offer incentives and programs and job training and then the workforce here is just incredible.

DEANA MITCHELL: Many locals here admit they aren’t too sure what crypto mining is.

Gary Smith, Rockdale resident: I don’t completely understand it 100 percent, and I know a lot of people’s the same way.

DEANA MITCHELL: But there are jobs beyond construction. The mayor said his son, who owned a pizza shop, now manages the repair facility for Bitdeer, a bitcoin mining firm that operated in China.

Some hope crypto mining will tide the town over until other industries can get going.

Steve Pruett, Rockdale resident: Until you get another replacement for this hardcore real manufacturing, like an aluminum company smelter, you’re never going to see anything close to return to the days that we had enjoyed here for 60 some odd years.

DEANA MITCHELL: The mining operators have worked to be good neighbors.

Jim Gibson, Rockdale economic development director: They’ve donated a very large community Christmas tree. They’ve made donations to the fire department. They’ve made donations to the police department for a new drug dog.

DEANA MITCHELL: And being known as a bitcoin mining capital has helped the town market itself.

John King, Rockdale mayor: We have been able to put Rockdale in front of a lot of people because of the interest in bitcoin.

DEANA MITCHELL: Gibson says his phone is ringing with crypto miners interested in setting up shop in town, including those from China.

Jim Gibson, Rockdale economic development director: We would love for there to be more here. The problem that we get in with that is electricity availability and land and time.

DEANA MITCHELL: In Rockdale, officials estimate it would take up to 24 months to get another mining facility built and running. Too slow for bitcoin miners, especially those relocating from overseas. And energy is an issue. Before a recent heatwave, Whinstone released this video message.

Chad Everett Harris, Whinstone: This facility here will — we will turn our power off. And during that time, that power that we are not using, can be used in the grid itself, so that it can support 200 or 300,000 homes in and around our community.

DEANA MITCHELL: All the crypto activity in town, and in the news, inspired Gibson to take the plunge himself.

Jim Gibson, Rockdale economic development director: I bought a cryptocurrency. I won’t say which one. And it has not performed well. I still have it. I’m not selling it. Not till it comes back up.

DEANA MITCHELL: Meanwhile, Rockdale’s bitcoin mining data centers continue to hum 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Deana Mitchell for VOA News, Rockdale, Texas

MICHELLE QUINN: The future of cryptocurrency and its impact on the environment is starting to raise concerns around the globe.

As some nations began to reduce the use of cryptocurrency due to the risk of surging carbon emissions outputs, the United States continues to lead the charge in crypto mining.

VOA’s Matt Dibble has the story of how U.S. lawmakers are managing the industry’s rapid growth coupled with the strain on energy supply and impact on the climate.

MATT DIBBLE, VOA Correspondent: Cryptocurrency requires an enormous amount of electricity, which today mainly comes from burning fossil fuels.

The rapidly growing industry is often cited as a threat to fighting climate change.

But some crypto miners are prioritizing green energy.

Soluna Computing’s John Belizaire says Bitcoin mining can even help overcome economic obstacles to building more solar and wind installations.

John Belizaire, Soluna Computing CEO: A lot of that renewable energy is wasted. Most people don’t know, but up to about 30 percent of the energy never makes it to the grid.

MATT DIBBLE: It’s called curtailment.

Wind farms sometimes generate more electricity than needed – an unused surplus that makes renewable energy less profitable.

That’s where Bitcoin mining comes in, says Belizaire.

John Belizaire, Soluna Computing CEO: We build flexible data centers right at the location of the power plant, that absorbs that wasted energy and converts it into computing that can be ramped up or ramped down very quickly.

MATT DIBBLE: This data center under construction at a windfarm in west Texas will use curtailed energy for cryptocurrency and other processing work. Efficient building design means no air conditioning.

Soluna’s data center in the state of Kentucky operates only when there is abundant power including from nearby hydroelectric plants.

John Belizaire, Soluna Computing CEO: There’s lots of places around the world where this wasted energy issue is a real challenge.

And so by bringing this new fresh revenue to the marketplace we can see more power plants come online.

MATT DIBBLE: Like the wind, Bitcoin’s value fluctuates wildly.

For now, crypto mining is providing some fresh revenue for renewable energy in a mutually beneficial relationship.

Matt Dibble for VOA News.

MICHELLE QUINN: In Africa, the nation of Nigeria is seeing a surge in its information technology sector. Research is showing despite the growing interest, there is a huge disparity in the number of men to women entering the IT field

VOA’s Timothy Obiezu has the story from Abuja on how educating women and girls on blockchain technologies and cryptocurrency is sparking gender equality.

TIMOTHY OBIEZU, Reporting for VOA: Sixty year-old Elizabeth Onaji arrives a weekly cryptocurrency training for women in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.

She enrolled for the training in June of this year she says to help advance her knowledge about the blockchain technology.

Elizabeth Onaji, Crypto Woman: I believe this is a worldwide project or business. Nigeria should not be the odd one out, we should also key into the global trend.

TIMOTHY OBIEZU: Blockchain enthusiast, Janet Kaatyo runs the classes.

She began free blockchain education for women in 2017 and says hundreds of Nigerian women are benefiting from her crypto training scheme.

Janet Kaatyo, Crypto Educator: I’m always interested in teaching women so that they can also be part of what is happening in the technology space and then you come to see, a lot of women, mothers are interested are already taking this blockchain technology and making life out of it, some are housewives, some are even working

TIMOTHY OBIEZU: But like many sectors, Nigeria’s technology sector also has a poor female representation, less than a fifth, despite recording huge growths in the last decade.

Kaatyo’s efforts are aimed at addressing this problem. Nigeria is Africa’s biggest blockchain market.

At the training this week, she partnered with nonprofit T’challa Foundation and introduced the women to an indigenous African cryptocurrency, T’challa, which launched in November.

Messiah Ogbuagu, Co-founder T’challa Foundation: T’challa is a hero that is coming out of Africa and to save Africa so what we’re trying to say is that it’s time for Africa to have a voice in the blockchain space and also for Africa to have a voice when it comes to cryptocurrencies. So this project was borne out of that desire to give us something to hold on to call our own.

TIMOTHY OBIEZU: However, blockchain technology experts say government policies could prove a challenge.

Messiah Ogbuagu, Co-founder T’challa Foundation: When you speak to people about cryptocurrency, they’ll try to remind you that the government said it’s not good for us, it’s a big barrier and people tend to follow that.

TIMOTHY OBIEZU: In February, Nigerian authorities warned citizens against cryptocurrencies and later in October, launched a digital currency known as the e-Naira.

But despite the risks and odds, women like Elizabeth and Kaatyo will be promoting cryptocurrencies and giving access to more many others.

Timothy Obiezu, for VOA News Abuja Nigeria.

MICHELLE QUINN: As the buzz grows around crypto and NFT’s, so does the amount of advice that’s out there.

Our Deana Mitchell went to Austin, the capital of Texas, to take us inside one of the country’s largest conferences for cryptocurrency and blockchain.

DEANA MITCHELL, VOA Correspondent: After 20 years on Wall Street, Akash Patel now works for an investment firm based in India, which he says trades between $100 and $200 million a day in crypto currency. The promise of crypto, he says, is to offset the risks inherent with government-controlled currencies.

Akash Patel, AlphaGrep Vice President: If you’re in some place like Argentina or if you’re in an African country, how do you protect yourself against your own government making bad decisions? And that’s why you decide to invest in something like Bitcoin or Ethereum.

DEANA MITCHELL: Around the world, investors big and small are talking about crypto currency, which works through computers and without a central authority. While the value of cryptocurrencies has dropped drastically in recent months, enthusiasts say the momentum for crypto is only going to grow.

At a recent gathering of crypto fans, Adam Charles was meeting with Trekk, a YouTube star he promotes who specializes in information videos about crypto.

Adam Charles, Marketer: 99% of the world’s population learns how to download a wallet and buy their first crypto currency off of YouTube, so we gotta make sure it’s safe and also fun. Cause if it ain’t fun, they ain’t gonna to watch it.

DEANA MITCHELL: Olivia Janisch, a crypto investor who works in brand strategy in Los Angeles, says she tells people to enter the crypto market based on their own comfort with risk.

Olivia Janisch, Crypto Investor: Just read, listen to podcasts, educate yourselves, figure out what your comfort level with the risk is.

DEANA MITCHELL: How will this burgeoning industry change with this new regulation? Only time will tell, but for these crypto boosters, the future is bright.

For VOA News, Deana Mitchell, Austin, Texas.

MICHELLE QUINN: That’s all for now from San Francisco. For everyone behind the scenes who produce this show, I am Michelle Quinn.

Follow me on Twitter at Michelle Quinn. And follow VOA News on Instagram and Facebook. Online —stay up to date at VOANews.com

Thanks for being with us. See you next week for The Inside Story.

Source: Voice of America

The United States mourned the death of Britain’s longest-serving monarch Thursday, as presidents and politicians acknowledged the singular life and achievements of Queen Elizabeth II.

“Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was more than a monarch. She defined an era. In a world of constant change, she was a steadying presence and a source of comfort and pride for generations of Britons,” President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden said in a statement Thursday.

The Bidens visited the British Embassy in Washington on Thursday evening, where they both signed the condolence book.

“We mourn for all of you,” the president told embassy staff. “She was a great lady. I’m so delighted I got to meet her.”

Buckingham Palace announced Thursday afternoon that the 96-year-old monarch had passed away peacefully at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. She was succeeded by her eldest son, Charles, now king.

Former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, also remembered the queen in a statement Thursday.

“Like so many, Michelle and I are grateful to have witnessed Her Majesty’s dedicated leadership, and we are awed by her legacy of tireless, dignified public service,” they said.

Former President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, also released a statement.

“What a grand and beautiful lady she was — there was nobody like her!” it read.

During the queen’s 70-year reign, she worked with 14 U.S. presidents, starting with Harry S. Truman. She was welcomed in the United States on official visits multiple times, including a visit in 1976 to celebrate the U.S. bicentennial; in 1991. when she addressed a joint session of Congress; and in 2007, when she visited Virginia to mark the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. It was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.

“Queen Elizabeth offered a master class in grace and strength, power and poise. Her extraordinary life and leadership will continue to inspire young women and girls in public service, now and for generations to come,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

“Personally, it was an honor to be on the floor of the House during her historic address to the Congress in 1991 and to welcome her as speaker on her important visit to the United States in 2007, which deepened the special relationship between our nations,” Pelosi added.

Resolution planned

The House of Representatives will pass a bereavement resolution honoring the queen next Tuesday. Pelosi ordered that flags over the U.S. Capitol be flown at half-staff for the monarch’s passing.

“For 70 long years, from the aftermath of World War II well into the 21st century, across 15 different prime ministers, through great triumphs and great challenges, the queen’s steady leadership safeguarded the land she loved. Despite spending nearly three-quarters of a century as one of the most famous and admired individuals on the planet, the queen made sure her reign was never really about herself,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement.

“The queen embodied the essence of British leadership for over seven decades and leaves a proud legacy of service to her people and of steadfast friendship and respect for the United States,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez said in a statement Thursday.

Many members of Congress had personally met the queen and remembered her fondly in statements on Thursday.

“I remember well her visit to San Francisco in 1983 when I was mayor,” said Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein. “I spent time with the queen at the Davies Symphony Hall and found her to be gracious and kind, a wonderful representative of her nation. Queen Elizabeth will be fondly remembered and missed by many, and my thoughts are with her family and the people of the U.K.”

The queen’s work on a global scale was also applauded in New York at the United Nations.

“Queen Elizabeth II was widely admired for her grace, dignity and dedication around the world. She was a reassuring presence throughout decades of sweeping change, including the decolonization of Africa and Asia and the evolution of the Commonwealth,” Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, said in a statement.

“Queen Elizabeth II was a good friend of the United Nations, and visited our New York Headquarters twice, more than fifty years apart. She was deeply committed to many charitable and environmental causes and spoke movingly to delegates at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow.”

Source: Voice of America