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Vytelle Releases Public Feed Efficiency Database

KANSAS CITY, Missouri, June 22, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Vytelle, with their network partners, announce the release of the Top 150 Proven Bulls. These high accuracy bulls have risen to the top of more than 81,000 animals of 25 different breeds and more than 262,000 residual feed intake (RFI) EPDs.

“There are two high-stake producer decisions that drive genetic progress in the global cattle industry: mating selection and reproduction method. By publicly sharing this list of feed efficient bulls, we’re able to assist cattle producers in identifying elite animals that drive a more accurate mating selection,” said Kerryann Kocher, Chief Executive Officer for Vytelle. “Producers can accelerate genetic progress to meet the global demand for high-quality and nutritious protein by utilizing the most modern hormone-free, in vitro fertilization to multiply offspring from their elite-performing animals.

The 2021 Top 150 Bulls list was compiled using data collected by Vytelle SENSE systems and Vytelle INSIGHT analytics services, formerly known as GrowSafe Systems. All tested animals include at least three generations of pedigrees and all animals must have at least a 0.6 accuracy rating on their RFI EPD to be eligible for the list. Each phenotyped animal strengthens the database providing producers insight to make profit-bearing decisions regarding selection for feed efficiency and performance. With the permission of each network member, Vytelle shares this information publicly to collectively advance feed efficiency improvements across the industry.

“Feed is 70 percent of a beef producer’s total production costs,” said Lisa Rumsfeld, Vice President of International Commercial Operation for Vytelle. “Whether breeders are looking to impact their direct feed cost, achieve marketing premiums or underpin methane emissions reduction claims with evidence-based metrics this database offers selection possibilities across breeds globally.”

Phenotypic data is captured through the use of Vytelle SENSE systems. The Feed Intake Nodes measure feed disappearance every second an animal is feeding, each time an animal feeds, to a 10-gram resolution. The In-Pen Weighing Position measures individual animal partial body weight and growth. It weighs every second an animal is standing at the water trough, which can equate up to 450 weights a day.

To find the full listing of the 2021 Top 150 Proven Bulls, visit https://vytelle.com/breeding-values/.

About Vytelle

Vytelle is a precision livestock company reshaping how cattle producers worldwide optimize their herds. Through Vytelle’s integrated technology platform, generations of genetic gains can be made in just a few years. This allows producers to sustainably deliver more protein with fewer inputs, helping to ensure meat and milk are viable, competitive food choices for future generations.

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Danielle Starr
Vytelle
danielle.starr@vytelle.com
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Huobi Launches Bonus Point Campaign with $18,000 Prize Pool for P2P Advertisers

GIBRALTAR, June 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Huobi Global, one of the world’s leading digital asset exchanges, announced last week the launch of its bonus point campaign for users from India, Russia, and Nigeria. Aiming at improving the liquidity of its P2P Market, the launch of this campaign offers users multiple choices while endowing advertisers with more benefits.

“Professional players represented by large institutions and listed companies are continuing to enter the digital assets market in recent years. At the same time, there are still many people in the world who have not been able to enjoy the benefits brought about by the development of this industry. As the first link into the crypto space, peer-to-peer market plays a decisive role in connecting fiat and cryptocurrency,” stated Ciara Sun, Vice President of Huobi Global Markets.

In addition to sharing the prize pool, advertisers participating in the event could also upgrade to “Verified” advertisers with a “V” symbol next to their names. For each region, only 20 advertisers would be selected to join in the campaign. Satisfying different conditions such as posting time, payment method, order completion rate, and trading volume are methods for advertisers to be able to obtain corresponding points which could then be redeemed for rewards.

In most normal circumstances, gaining access to the points can be easy for participants. For instance, if an advertiser’s USDT selling price ranks TOP 10 on another platform, he/she will be able to obtain three points. If the advertiser posts two ads with at least one of them resulting in a sale of 500 USDT, he/she earns two points. Other conditions such as supporting local bank cards, having order completion rates greater than 85%, or exceeding 150-hour advertisement posting time will count as 1 point. Only 6 points, however, are required for a reward and the highest score of 10 points could be used to redeem 300 HUSD.

“We’ve been committed to providing institutional and retail users with a safe, stable, and user-friendly trading experience in a compliant manner. By offering users more choices in relation to pricing and advertising, we can greatly reduce their time and cost for trading. This will, in turn, help us establish a sound ecosystem,” added Ciara.

To participate in the campaign, users from India, Russia, and Nigeria are required to register through an exclusive link, complete advanced verification, and enable phone authentication.

About Huobi Group
Huobi Group is a world leading blockchain and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider with a financial product suite that includes the largest digital asset exchange by liquidity and real-trading volume. Trusted by users in over 170 countries, the Huobi platform is dedicated to improving financial freedom and inclusive access for all users. Huobi boasts an unmatched portfolio of crypto product offerings. This includes trading and financial products, cryptocurrency and blockchain financial infrastructure solutions, education, data and research, social welfare, investment, and incubation. We are always continuing to innovate on our future horizon.

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Malawi Launches Campaign to Eradicate Malaria By 2030

Malawi’s government Tuesday announced a goal to eliminate malaria, a leading cause of death in the country, by 2030. The mosquito-spread parasitic disease accounts for about 15% of Malawi’s hospital admissions.

Speaking during a televised launch of a nationwide anti-malaria initiative known as ‘Zero Malaria Starts with Me’ campaign, President Lazarus Chakwera said statistics on malaria infection in the country are worrying.

He said malaria contributed about 36% of all out-patient department cases and 15% of all hospital admissions in Malawi.

“This creates a lot of work for our health workers and pressure on drugs in our public health facilities. And additionally, malaria remains the leading cause of death in Malawi claiming six lives every day,” said Chakwera.

President Chakwera said last year, Malawi registered 6.9 million malaria cases – more than a third of the total population — and lost 2,500 lives because of the disease. It killed more Malawians than any other disease, including COVID-19.

The Malawi leader said his administration is committed to do whatever it takes to create a malaria-free country.

“And admittedly this commitment cannot be government’s alone. Malaria is a collective problem that demands collective strategy,” said Chakwera. “By collective strategy I am referring to private sector players and development partners who need to put money where their mouth is and join their resources to ours so we finance this fight together.”

Chakwera announced what he called ‘ten commandments’ which would help in preventing and cure the disease.

These include, clearing all breeding grounds for mosquitoes, timely taking of prescribed malaria medication and sleeping under a mosquito net.

“My administration will distribute 9,258,645 mosquito nets in 25 districts, and also indoor residual spraying in the districts of Nkhata-bay, Nkhota-kota, Balaka and Mangochi,” said Chakwera. “Currently only 55% of Malawians sleep under mosquito nets, and we need to get to a 100% to prevail.”

The initiative is part of the global campaign to end Malaria by 2030.

The U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative, launched in 2005, is among the financiers of the campaign.

The program’s team leader in Malawi, Monica Batista, explained how malaria personally affected her.

“When I first started working for malaria, it was not a personal issue for me,” said Batista . “That all changed just six months ago when I lost a dear friend to malaria. Now the fight against malaria is personal for me. I understand what it feels like to lose a loved one to this preventable disease.”

She said the U.S. government has for the past 15 years contributed about $270 million towards malaria prevention and control activities in Malawi.

“The strides we have made against malaria, though significant, are delicate and incomplete,” said Batista. “To defeat malaria, we will need a more concerted effort among the private sector, the public sector and civil society together as a whole.”

She said the launch of Zero Malaria Starts with Me campaign serves as a call to action.

Source: Voice of America

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New UN Report Accuses Eritrea of Committing Heinous Crimes in Ethiopia

A report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council accuses the Eritrean government of involvement in Ethiopia’s conflict in the Tigray region and of committing serious human rights violations against Eritreans who have sought asylum in Tigray.

The special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Eritrea, Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker, is new to the job, although in 2017 he was part of a U.N. monitoring team whose findings resulted in the imposition of sanctions on the country.

In this, his first report since he started his mandate in November, he pulled no punches. He presented a grim picture of a government that perpetrates gross human rights violations with impunity both at home and abroad.

“There are no tangible signs of progress or concrete evidence of improvement in the internal human rights situation in Eritrea. In addition, Eritrea extended its human rights violations extra-territorially or beyond its borders during this mandate and committed heinous human rights violations in the Tigray region of Ethiopia,” he said.

Babiker said he has received allegations that Eritrean troops in Tigray carried out deliberate attacks against civilians, summary executions, sexual and gender-based violence.

He said they also allegedly took part in the abduction and disappearance of Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers.

Babiker expressed particular concern about the reported destruction by Eritrean troops of two refugee camps in Hitsats and Shimelba in northern Tigray, which hosted more than 25,000 Eritrean refugees. The refugee camps are located near the two countries’ borders.

“I call on the Eritrean authorities to withdraw their forces from Tigray, to provide information about the whereabouts of the missing Eritrean refugees and to release any Eritrean refugees held in detention,” he said.

Turning to the situation inside Eritrea, Babiker said the only positive news he has to report is of the release of more than 100 Muslims, Orthodox Christians, and Jehovah’s Witnesses who were detained without charges and trial, some for over 20 years.

He urged the government to release all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience who have been held incommunicado for indefinite periods under inhumane conditions.

In his response to Babiker, Ambassador Tesfamicael Gerahtu of Eritrea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs made no reference to an Eritrean troop presence in Ethiopia. He rejected the report, calling it politicized. He also called into question the legitimacy of the Special Rapporteur’s mandate and told the Council it should be abolished.

Source: Voice of America

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WFP: Catastrophic Hunger Descending on Southern Madagascar

The head of the World Food Program said Tuesday that more than a million people in southern Madagascar are “marching toward” starvation, and some 14,000 are already in famine-like conditions.

“You really can’t imagine how bad it is,” David Beasley told a small group of reporters about the conditions he saw during his trip last week to the East African island nation.

He said people are barely finding enough to eat, and many are dying. The WFP chief described people subsisting on mud and cactus flowers and hundreds of emaciated children with ripples of sagging skin on their limbs.

“It’s something you see in a horror movie,” Beasley said.

The country has suffered a series of successive droughts since 2014, leading to poor harvests. Last year, swarms of desert locusts swept through East Africa. Earlier this year two tropical storms appeared to bring some drought relief, but the rainfall, combined with warm temperatures, created ideal conditions for an infestation of fall armyworms, which destroy maize.

“There is no conflict driving these hunger numbers in the south,” Beasley said, referring to the main cause of severe food insecurity affecting other countries. “It is strictly climate change; it is strictly drought upon drought upon drought.”

Families have sold their land, their cattle and all their possessions to buy food.

The scope of the problem is daunting. More than a half million people in the south are one step away from starvation. Right behind them are roughly 800,000 more. Of the 14,000 already in famine-like conditions, WFP says their numbers could double in the coming months.

Beasley said his agency needs $78.6 million to get 1.3 million people through the lean season, which will begin in September and run through March. And they need the money now because it takes 3 to 4 months to move food into southern Madagascar.

“If we don’t get that money, then you are talking about at least a half a million people being in famine-like conditions,” said the WFP executive director.

That money buys essential food items, including cereals, beans, lentils and cooking oil for families.

Last week, the United States announced nearly $40 million in emergency assistance for southern Madagascar. The money will fund ongoing programs operated by WFP, UNICEF and Catholic Relief Services.

The worsening food crisis in southern Madagascar is not the only looming famine Beasley’s agency is coping with.

WFP said Tuesday that 41 million people are on the brink of famine in 43 countries, and it won’t take much to push them over the edge. That’s up from 27 million in 2019. The agency needs $6 billion to assist them.

Ethiopia, Madagascar, South Sudan and Yemen are experiencing the severest food crises. Nigeria and Burkina Faso are also of special concern because they have in recent months had pockets of people in the highest crisis levels of hunger.

“We are in unprecedented waters right now, unlike anything we have seen since World War II,” said Beasley. “The numbers are astounding.”

Source: Voice of America

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World Bank, African Union Partner to Buy, Distribute 400 Million COVID-19 Shots

The World Bank announced a partnership with the African Union Tuesday to finance the acquisition and distribution of COVID-19 vaccine for 400 million people in Africa.

In a remote news conference via Zoom, World Bank Managing Operations Director Axel van Trotsenburg said the World Bank is providing $12 billion to not only acquire but deploy 400 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — a single dose shot — in support of the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) initiative.

The announcement comes a day after African finance ministers and the World Bank Group met to fast-track vaccine acquisition on the continent and avoid a third wave of COVID-19.

Van Trotsenburg said the bank is making the financing available in an effort to address the imbalance in vaccine access between the world’s wealthy and not-so-wealthy nations.

He said, “Less than one percent of the African population has been vaccinated. Africa has been marginalized in this global effort to get a vaccine. We have to correct this unfairness; and given that this is a global pandemic, we need global solutions and global solidarity.”

The project will be a big step toward helping the African Union meet its goal to vaccinate 60% of the continent’s population by 2022.

Van Trotsenburg said the regional effort complements the work of the World Health Organization-managed COVAX vaccine cooperative and comes at a time of rising COVID-19 cases in the region.

The World Bank has already approved operations to support vaccine roll outs in 36 countries. By the end of June, the World Bank expects to be supporting vaccination efforts in 50 countries, two thirds of which are in Africa.

Source: Voice of America

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Turkey Under Pressure Over Military Presence in Libya

Analysts say Turkey is expected to come under pressure to remove its military from Libya when world leaders gather Wednesday at a conference in Berlin. The meeting will include discussions on elections and the withdrawal of foreign forces from the war-torn north African country.

The Berlin conference is the second international meeting organized by Germany and the United Nations. Discussions will focus on permanently ending the Libyan civil war, and laying the groundwork for December elections.

A key goal of the gathering is the creation of a framework for the withdrawal of all foreign fighters, something Aya Burweila, a visiting lecturer at the Hellenic National Defense College, says is key to restoring stability in the country.

“Good governance is very difficult to establish in Libya. There are arms everywhere, there are militias everywhere. So, the presence of foreign powers really undermines that. Libyans want them all out. They want a normal country. Most of all, they want elections at the end of the year,” Burweila said.

Turkey deployed hundreds of soldiers and thousands of Syrian fighters in support of the Libyan Government of National Accord in its battle against forces of Libya’s General Khalifa Haftar, who is backed by Russian and Sudanese mercenaries.

A cease-fire is now in force.

While backing calls for the removal of foreign troops, Ankara says its presence is legitimate because it was invited by the internationally recognized government.

But with conference attendees, including EU members and the United States calling for the removal of all foreign troops, and Turkey seeking to improve ties with its western allies, international relations professor Serhat Guvenc of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University says Ankara will likely acquiesce, at least in part.

“Turkey will probably eventually come to the terms. They will take those foreign fighters from Libya, the Syrian fighters, the Turkish proxies [out],” Guvenc said.

A U.S. Defense Department report last year said Turkey sent thousands of paid Syrian fighters to Libya. Burweila said the mercenaries are among the most destabilizing forces in Libya.

“These Syrian mercenaries, their behavior in Libya, [is] very much similar to [their actions in] northeast Syria: Looting, sexual assaults, violence. There is something very jarring to natives seeing foreign men with arms driving around their streets with no accountability,” Burweila said.

Ankara denies such claims of misconduct.

Turkey’s wider military presence is also expected to come under pressure. The Turkish military constructed an airbase and wants to establish a naval base in Libya, a plan opposed by Egypt and France, which are also represented at the Berlin conference.

But Guvenc said Ankara sees its Libyan military presence as having strategic importance.

“Turkey has to keep a foot in Africa. That air force base in al Watiya in Libya offers tremendous opportunities in that regard. So, probably, Turkey will bargain very hard to keep that base,” Guvenc said.

Analysts say the Berlin conference sees Ankara working to balance its strategic goals of improving ties with its Western allies while expanding its influence in Africa.

Source: Voice of America