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Islamabad — A senior Russian diplomat says Russia’s foreign and justice ministries have told President Vladimir Putin that Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban “can be removed” from the list of Moscow-designated terrorist organizations. Zamir Kabulov, the special presidential envoy for Afghanistan, told state-run TASS news agency Monday that the delisting would enable Moscow to decide whether to recognize the Taliban government. “Without this [removal of the ban on the Taliban], it will be premature to talk about recognition,” he was quoted as saying. “Therefore, work on this issue continues. All considerations have been reported to the top leadership of Russia. We are waiting for a decision." Separately, TASS quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as saying Monday that the Taliban is the “real power” in Afghanistan and that the group’s possible removal from Moscow’s list of banned organizations reflects “objective reality.” Russia formally labeled the Taliban a terrorist organization in 2003, when the radical group was waging a deadly insurgency against the United States and allied troops in Afghanistan. The insurgents stormed back to power on August 15, 2021, and established a men-only Taliban government as the U.S.-led foreign troops withdrew from Afghanistan. No foreign country has formally recognized the Taliban as legitimate rulers, mainly due to human rights and terrorism-related concerns. However, several neighboring and regional countries, including Russia, have retained their embassies in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover and allowed the de facto government to run Afghan embassies on their respective soils. Kabulov noted Monday that the Taliban had “come a long way towards being recognized” since seizing power. "But there are still a few hurdles to overcome, after which the Russian leadership will make a decision," he said, without elaborating. The Russian envoy was also quoted as saying Monday that his government had extended an invitation to the Taliban to attend a June 5-8 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. The event, which once hosted top Western business leaders and investment bankers from London and New York, has changed significantly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow and the international community at large have been urging the Taliban to govern the war-torn South Asian nation through a politically inclusive government and remove bans on Afghan women’s access to education and work. The hardline de facto rulers have rejected criticism of their governance as interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan, saying their policies are aligned with local culture and Islamic law. Russia has been developing ties with the Taliban for years and reportedly provided them with weapons while they were waging insurgent attacks on the U.S.-led foreign troops and their Afghan allies. Taliban officials say trade ties between Kabul and Moscow have rapidly grown over the past couple of years. Some information for this report came from Reuters.

Cairo — An Egyptian appeals court on Monday upheld a one-year jail sentence for opposition politician Ahmad al-Tantawi, who was then arrested "inside the courthouse," lawyer Nabeh Elganadi told AFP. Tantawi, who had hoped to run against President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in elections last year, was found guilty of election campaign irregularities in February. "The sentence at the time was suspended on bail until the appeal today," Elganadi said, adding that Tantawi was arrested as soon as the decision was declared. The former lawmaker was also "barred from running in parliamentary elections for five years," according to human rights group the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms. The Matareya Misdemeanour Court also upheld sentences against 22 members of Tantawi's campaign team, including its director Mohamed Aboul Deyar, of "one year in prison with hard labor," Elganadi said. They had been convicted of "circulating election-related papers without official authorization" in the lead-up to the election, which Sisi won in his third landslide victory. Tantawi had accused authorities of hampering his effort to collect the endorsements required to run in the presidential election, under various pretexts including computer malfunctions. Tantawi instead asked his supporters to fill out unofficial "popular endorsement" forms — a tactic the authorities labelled as tantamount to election fraud. He ultimately collected only 14,000 endorsements — well short of the 25,000 needed from at least 15 of Egypt's 27 governorates to enable him to run. Alternatively, he would have had to garner nominations from at least 20 parliamentary deputies. The former member of parliament withdrew his candidacy before the December vote, citing harassment and obstruction. The National Election Authority announced Sisi's victory on December 18 with 89.6 percent of the vote. He had run against three relatively unknowns: Hazem Omar of the Republican People's Party, Farid Zahran (Egyptian Social Democratic Party) and Abdel-Sanad Yamama (Wafd Party). According to Human Rights Watch, the authorities deployed "an array of repressive tools to eliminate potential challengers," including jailing another prospective candidate, Hisham Kassem. Cairo has long been criticized for its human rights record, with rights groups estimating that tens of thousands of political prisoners remain behind bars, many of them in brutal conditions.

In the city of Kupyansk in eastern Ukraine, a small coffee shop sits just 8 kilometers from the front lines. It opened last summer — the latest in a chain of coffee shops in the region. Despite the ongoing war, its owner says more are on the way. Anna Kosstutschenko met with him. VOA footage and video editing by Pavel Suhodolskiy.

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 Chancay port, a Chinese-built megaport in Peru, could become the gateway for Asian trade to the region. But local residents and security analysts say the economic benefit comes at a price. Adriana Núñez Rabascall has the details. Video editing: Veronica Villafañe

Los Angeles' Chinatown has undergone many changes, as immigrants from mainland China join those from Hong Kong, Taiwan and other parts of Southeast Asia. As Mike O’Sullivan reports, the growing community has also expanded to the suburbs, where recent arrivals find much that is familiar. Mo Yu contributed.

NEW YORK — Americans who spend Memorial Day scouting sales online and in stores may find more reasons to celebrate the return of warmer weather. Major retailers are stepping up discounts heading into the summer months, hoping to entice inflation-weary shoppers into opening their wallets. Target, Walmart and other chains have rolled out price cuts — some permanent, others temporary — with the stated aim of giving their customers some relief. The reductions, which mostly involve groceries, are getting introduced as inflation showed its first sign of easing this year but not enough for consumers who are struggling to pay for basic necessities as well as rent and car insurance. The latest quarterly earnings reported by Walmart, Macy's and Ralph Lauren underscored that consumers have not stopped spending. But multiple CE0s, including the heads of McDonald's, Starbucks and home improvement retailer Home Depot, have observed that people are becoming more price-conscious and choosy. They're delaying purchases, focusing on store brands compared to typically more expensive national brands, and looking for deals. “Retailers recognize that unless they pull out some stops on pricing, they are going to have difficulty holding on to the customers they got," Neil Saunders, managing director of consulting and data analysis firm GlobalData, said. “The consumer really has had enough of inflation, and they’re starting to take action in terms of where they shop, how they shop, the amount they buy.” While discounts are an everyday tool in retail, Saunders said these aggressive price cuts that cover thousands of items announced by a number of retailers represent a “major shift” in recent strategy. He noted most companies talked about price increases in the past two or three years, and the cut mark the first big “price war” since before inflation started taking hold. Where can shoppers find lower prices? Higher-income shoppers looking to save money have helped Walmart maintain strong sales in recent quarters. But earlier this month, the nation’s largest retailer expanded its price rollbacks — temporary discounts that can last a few months — to nearly 7,000 grocery items, a 45% increase. Items include a 28-ounce can of Bush's baked beans marked down to $2.22, from $2.48, and a 24-pack of 12-ounce Diet Coke priced at $12.78 from $14.28. Company executives said the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer is seeing more people eating at home versus eating out. Walmart believes its discounts will help the business over the remainder of the year. “We’re going to lead on price, and we’re going to manage our (profit) margins, and we’re going to be the Walmart that we’ve always been,” CEO Doug McMillon told analysts earlier this month. Not to be outdone by its closest competitor, Target last week cut prices on 1,500 items and said it planned to make price cuts on another 3,500 this summer. The initiative primarily applies to food, beverage and essential household items. For example, Clorox scented wipes that previously cost $5.79 are on shelves for $4.99. Huggies Baby Wipes, which were priced at $1.19, now cost 99 cents. Low-cost supermarket chain Aldi said earlier this month that it was cutting prices on 250 products, including favorites for barbecues and picnics, as part of a promotion set to last through Labor Day. McDonald’s plans to introduce a limited-time $5 meal deal in the U.S. next month to counter slowing sales and customers’ frustration with high prices. Arko Corp., a large operator of convenience stores in rural areas and small towns, is launching its most aggressive deals in terms of their depth in roughly 20 years for both members of its free loyalty program and other customers, according to Arie Kotler, the company's chairman, president and CEO. For example, members of Arko's free loyalty program who buy two 12-packs of Pepsi beverages get a free pizza. The promotions kicked off May 15 and are due to end Sept. 3. Kotler said he focused on essential items that people use to feed their families after observing that the cumulative effects of higher gas prices and inflation in other areas had customers hold back compared to a year ago. “Over the past two quarters, we have seen the trend of consumers cutting back, consumers coming less often, and consumers reducing their purchases,” he said. In the non-food category, crafts chain Michaels last month reduced prices of frequently purchased items like paint, markers and artist canvases. The price reductions ranged from 15% to up to 40%. Michaels said the cuts are intended to be permanent. Do these cuts bring prices back to pre-pandemic levels? Many retailers said their goal was to offer some relief for shoppers. But Michaels said its new discounts brought prices for some things down to where they were in 2019. “Our intention with these cuts is to ensure we’re delivering value to the customer," The Michaels Companies said. ”We see it as an investment in customer loyalty more than anything else." Target said it was difficult to compare what its price-reduced products cost now to a specific time frame since inflation levels are different for each item and the reductions varied by item. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks consumer prices, said the average price of a two-liter bottle of soda in April was $2.27. That compares with $1.53 in the same month five years ago. A pound of white bread cost an average of $2 last month but $1.29 in April 2019. One pound of ground chuck that averaged $5.28 in April cost $3.91 five years ago. Why are companies cutting prices on some items? U.S. consumer confidence deteriorated for the third straight month in April as Americans continued to fret about their short-term financial futures, according to the latest report released late last month from the Conference Board, a business research group. With shoppers focusing more on bargains, particularly online, retailers are trying to get customers back to their stores. Target this month posted its fourth consecutive quarterly decline in comparable sales — those from stores or digital channels operating at least 12 months. In fact, the share of online sales for the cheapest items across many categories, including clothing, groceries, personal care and appliances, increased from April 2019 to the same month this year, according to Adobe Analytics, which covers more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites. For example, the market share for the cheapest groceries went from 38% in April 2019 to 48% last month, while the share for the most expensive groceries went down from 22% to 9% over the same time period, according to Adobe. How are retailers funding price cuts? GlobalData's Saunders said he thinks companies are subsidizing price cuts with a variety of methods — at the expense of profits, at the cost of suppliers and vendors, or by reducing expenses. Some retailers may be using a combination of all three, he said. Saunders doesn't think retailers are raising prices on other items to make up for the ones they lowered since doing that would bring a backlash from customers. Target declined to disclose details but said its summer price promotion was incorporated into the company's projected profit range, which falls below analysts' expectations at the low end. GPM Investments, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of ARKO Corp. said its suppliers are funding the convenience store promotions.

Warsaw, Poland — Poland fleshed out details on Monday of "East Shield," a 10 billion zloty ($2.55 billion) program to beef up defenses along its eastern border with Belarus and Russia, saying it hoped to complete the plans by 2028. The border has been a flashpoint since migrants started flocking there in 2021, after Belarus, a close Russian ally, opened travel agencies in the Middle East offering a new unofficial route into Europe — a move the European Union said was designed to create a crisis. The Polish defense ministry presented details of the program, including plans to build fortifications, hubs and telecommunication systems in coordination with other eastern front-line NATO allies — Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. "This makes up one complex system of defensive and deterrent actions. It connects access systems, but we will also purchase and implement modern anti-drone and reconnaissance systems," Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said. "This is the largest operation to strengthen Poland's eastern border, NATO's eastern flank, since 1945," he told a news conference. Deputy Defense Minister Cezary Tomczyk said the investments would start in the first quarter of 2025 and were expected to be completed by 2028. Poland hopes to tap EU funds for some of the projects. Poland's previous government built a fence on the Polish-Belarusian border that is more than 180 km long (112 miles) and 5.5 meters (18 feet) high to protect against illegal migration. It is complemented by a system of cameras and sensors monitoring the frontier. Relations between Poland and Russia have also deteriorated sharply since Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Warsaw has ramped up defense spending in response.

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Geneva — The World Health Organization chief on Monday urged countries to nail down a landmark global agreement on handling of future pandemics after they missed a hard deadline. Scarred by COVID-19 — which killed millions, shredded economies and crippled health systems — nations have spent two years trying to forge binding commitments on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Negotiators failed to clinch a deal ahead of this week's World Health Assembly — the annual gathering of WHO's 194 member states — the deadline for concluding the talks. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus opened the assembly Monday, saying he was confident that an agreement would be secured. "Of course, we all wish that we had been able to reach a consensus on the agreement in time for this health assembly and crossed the finish line,” he said. "But I remain confident that you still will, because where there is a will, there is a way." Tedros said the task before negotiators had been "immense, technically, legally, and politically", and that they had been "operating on a very ambitious timeline." "You have demonstrated a clear commitment to reaching an agreement," he said, adding that negotiators had "worked long days and nights," closing meetings as late as 4:00 a.m. He hailed their dedication to push forward despite "a torrent of misinformation that was undermining your negotiations." While missing Friday's deadline, countries have voiced a commitment to keep pushing for an accord. Negotiators are due on Tuesday to present the outcome of the talks to the assembly, which runs until June 1, and the assembly will take stock and decide what to do next. "I know that there remains among you a common will to get this done, so, there must always be a way," Tedros said. "Meaning the solution is in your hands," he stressed. Parallel talks have also taken place on revising the International Health Regulations, which were first adopted in 1969 and constitute the existing international legally binding framework for responding to public health emergencies around the world. The proposed amendments to the IHR, including adding more nuance to a system meant to alert countries to potential health emergencies of global concern, might have a better chance of being adopted during this week's assembly, observers said.

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.

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. — Generations of American families have grown up not knowing exactly what happened to their loved ones who died while serving their country in World War II and other conflicts. But a federal lab tucked away above the bowling alley at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha and a sister lab in Hawaii are steadily answering those lingering questions, aiming to offer 200 families per year the chance to honor their relatives with a proper burial. “They may not even have been alive when that service member was alive, but that story gets carried down through the generations," said Carrie Brown, a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency lab manager at Offutt. "They may have seen on the mantle a picture of that person when they were little and not really understood or known who they were.” Memorial Day and the upcoming 80th anniversary of D-Day on June 6 are reminders of the urgency of Brown's work. The forensic anthropologists, medical examiners and historians who work together to identify lost soldiers are in a race against time as remains buried on battlefields around the globe deteriorate. But advances in DNA technology, combined with innovative techniques including comparing bones to chest X-rays taken by the military, mean the labs can identify more of the missing soldiers every year. Some 72,000 World War II soldiers remain unaccounted for, along with roughly 10,000 more from all the conflicts since. The experts believe about half of those are recoverable. The agency identified 59 servicemembers in 2013, when the Offutt lab first opened. That number has steadily risen — 159 service members last year, up from 134 in 2022 — and the labs have a goal of 200 identifications annually. The labs' work allowed Donna Kennedy to bury her cousin, Cpl. Charles Ray Patten, with full military honors this month in the same Lawson, Missouri, cemetery where his father and grandfather are buried. Patten died 74 years ago during the Korean War, but spent decades buried as an unknown in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. “I just I ached. I mean, it hurt. You know, I just felt so bad. Even though I didn’t know him, I loved him,” Kennedy said. Patten's funeral was a simple affair with just a few family members. But often when veterans who fought decades earlier are identified, people waving flags and holding signs line the streets of their hometowns to herald the return of their remains. “This work is important first and foremost because these are individuals that gave their lives to protect our freedom, and they paid the ultimate sacrifice. So we’re here holding that promise that we’ll return them home to their families,” Brown said. "It’s important for their families to show them that we’ll never stop, no matter what,” she said. Often there are compelling details, Brown said. One of her first cases involved the intact remains of a World War I Marine found in a forest in France with his wallet still in his pocket. The wallet, initialed G.H., contained a New York Times article describing plans for the offensive in which he ultimately died. He also had an infantryman badge with his name and the year he received it on the back. Before leaving France with the remains, the team visited a local cemetery where other soldiers were buried and learned there were only two missing soldiers with the initials G.H. Brown had a fair idea who that soldier was before his remains even arrived in the lab. That veteran was buried in Arlington National Cemetery and Brown often visits his grave when she is in Washington D.C. Most cases aren’t that easy. The experts who work at the lab must piece together identities by looking at historical records about where the remains were found and which soldiers were in the area. They then consult the list of possible names and use the bones, objects found with them, military medical records and DNA to confirm their identities. They focus on battles and plane crashes where they have the greatest chance of success because of available information. But their work can be complicated if soldiers were buried in a temporary cemetery and moved when a unit was forced to retreat. And unidentified soldiers were often buried together. When remains are brought to the lab, they sometimes include an extra bone. Experts then spend months or even years matching the bones and waiting for DNA and other test results to confirm their identities. One test even can identify if the soldier grew up primarily eating rice or a corn-based diet. The lab also compares specific traits of collar bones to the chest X-rays the military routinely took of soldiers before they were deployed. It helps that the military keeps extensive records of all soldiers. Those clues help the experts put together the puzzle of someone's identity. “It’s not always easy. It’s certainly not instantaneous,” Brown said. “Some of the cases, we really have to fight to get to that spot, because some of them have been gone for 80 years.”

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.

London — Life expectancy in Europe has returned to the level it reached before the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, while the U.S. is still trying to regain lost ground. Overall, new numbers show life expectancy has increased in most parts of the world, with eastern sub-Saharan Africa showing the biggest gains over the past three decades. Latest European Union figures released this month show the average life expectancy across the bloc in 2023 was 81.5 years — almost a year's gain over 2022, as the coronavirus pandemic was coming to an end. Jennifer Beam Dowd is a professor of demography and population health at the University of Oxford. “Within Europe, we're seeing really high life expectancy in countries like Spain and Italy, Sweden, Norway, but some countries are falling behind their peers and that includes the UK. And then Eastern Europe has made a lot of progress since the post-Soviet mortality crisis of the 1990s, but they're still lagging behind a bit,” she said. A recent study in the Lancet journal showed that globally, life expectancy increased by 6.2 years between 1990 and 2021 — with eastern sub-Saharan Africa experiencing the largest increase of some 10.7 years. “I think that's really good news and reflects a lot of continued progress all over the world in falls and infectious disease and infant and child mortality, which makes a big difference to life expectancy because you're saving a lot of years of life if you save lives at young ages,” said Jennifer Beam Dowd. Figures released in March showed average life expectancy in the United States in 2022, the most recent data available, was 77.5 years — still more than a year lower than the life expectancy before the pandemic. Figures for 2023 have not yet been released. “A lot of countries have bounced back close to pre-pandemic life expectancy, but some countries such as the U.S. have not returned yet to the levels they were at in 2019," said Jennifer Beam Dowd. "Another thing that's having a big impact, we think right now, is the obesity epidemic, which started taking off, especially in the U.S., in the early 1980s. And in fact, we are seeing major slowdowns in improvements from cardiovascular disease that are driving a lot of the stalling life expectancy in high-income countries.” The European principality of Monaco — a favorite home for the super-rich — had the world’s highest life expectancy in 2023, at almost 90 years, according to U.S. figures.

Life expectancy in Europe has returned to the level it reached before the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, while the U.S. is still trying to regain lost ground. Overall, new numbers show life expectancy has increased in most parts of the world, with eastern sub-Saharan Africa showing the biggest gains over the past three decades. Henry Ridgwell reports.

LILANDA, Zambia — Extreme weather events have hit parts of Africa relentlessly in the last three years, with tropical storms, floods and drought causing crises of hunger and displacement. They leave another deadly threat behind them: some of the continent's worst outbreaks of cholera. In southern and East Africa, more than 6,000 people have died and nearly 350,000 cases have been reported since a series of cholera outbreaks began in late 2021.  Malawi and Zambia have had their worst outbreaks on record. Zimbabwe has had multiple waves. Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia also have been badly affected.  All have experienced floods or drought — in some cases, both — and health authorities, scientists and aid agencies say the unprecedented surge of the water-borne bacterial infection in Africa is the newest example of how extreme weather is playing a role in driving disease outbreaks.  "The outbreaks are getting much larger because the extreme climate events are getting much more common," said Tulio de Oliveira, a South Africa-based scientist who studies diseases in the developing world.  De Oliveira, who led a team that identified new coronavirus variants during the COVID-19 pandemic, said southern Africa's latest outbreaks can be traced to the cyclones and floods that hit Malawi in late 2021 and early 2022, carrying the cholera bacteria to areas it doesn't normally reach.  Zimbabwe and Zambia have seen cases rise as they wrestle with severe droughts and people rely on less safe sources of water in their desperation like boreholes, shallow wells and rivers, which can all be contaminated. Days after the deadly flooding in Kenya and other parts of East Africa this month, cholera cases appeared.  The World Health Organization calls cholera a disease of poverty, as it thrives where there is poor sanitation and a lack of clean water. Africa has had eight times as many deaths this year as the Middle East, the second-most affected region.  Historically vulnerable, Africa is even more at risk as it faces the worst impacts of climate change as well as the effect of the El Niño weather phenomenon, health experts say.  In what's become a perfect storm, there's also a global shortage of cholera vaccines, which are needed only in poorer countries.  "It doesn't affect countries with resources," said Dr. Daniela Garone, the international medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym MSF. "So, it doesn't bring the resources."  Billions of dollars have been invested into other diseases that predominantly affect the world's most vulnerable, like polio and tuberculosis, largely because those diseases are highly contagious and could cause outbreaks even in rich countries. But that's not the case with cholera, where epidemics remain contained.  WHO said this month there is a "critical shortage" of oral cholera vaccines in the global stockpile. Since the start of 2023, 15 countries — the desperate few — have requested a total of 82 million doses to deal with deadly outbreaks while only 46 million doses were available.  There are just 3.2 million doses left, below the target of having at least 5 million in reserve. While there are currently cholera epidemics in the Middle East, the Americas and Southeast Asia, Africa is by far the worst-affected region.  Vaccines alliance GAVI and UNICEF said last month that the approval of a new cholera vaccine would boost stocks. But the result of the shortage has already been measured in deaths.  Lilanda, a township on the edge of the Zambian capital of Lusaka, is a typical cholera hot spot. Stagnant pools of water dot the dirt roads. Clean water is like gold dust. Here, over two awful days in January, Mildred Banda saw her 1-year-old son die from cholera and rushed to save the life of her teenage daughter.  Cholera shouldn't be killing anyone. The disease is easily treated and easily prevented — and the vaccines are relatively simple to produce.  That didn't help Banda's son, Ndanji.  When he fell sick with diarrhea, he was treated with an oral rehydration solution at a clinic and released. He slipped back into dehydration that night at home. Banda feels terrible guilt.  "I should have noticed earlier that my son was not feeling well," she said, sitting in her tiny concrete house. "I should have acted faster and taken him back to the clinic. I should have taken him back to save his life."  Because of the vaccine shortage, Zambia couldn't undertake a preventative vaccination campaign after neighboring Malawi's outbreak. That should have been a warning call, said de Oliveira. Zambia only made an emergency request when its cases started mounting.  The doses that might have saved Ndanji started arriving in mid-January. He died on Jan. 6.  In Zimbabwe, a drought worsened by El Niño has seen cholera take hold in distant rural areas as well as its traditional hot spots of crowded urban neighborhoods.  Abi Kebra Belaye, MSF representative for Zimbabwe, said the southern African nation normally has around 17 hard-hit areas, mostly urban. This year, cholera spread to 62 districts as the struggle to find water heightened the risk.  "This part of Africa is paying the highest price of climate change," Kebra Belaye said.  Augustine Chonyera, who hails from a cholera-prone part of the capital, Harare, was shocked when he recently visited the sparsely populated rural district of Buhera.  He said he heard grim tales of the impact of the disease: a family losing five members, a husband and wife dying within hours of each other and local businesses using delivery trucks to take the sick to a clinic several kilometers (miles) away.  "It seems now the people in rural areas are in more danger than us. I still wonder how it happened," Chonyera said.  He said he returned home as soon as he could — after giving a large bottle of treated water he had brought with him to an elderly woman. 

TASHIROJIMA — On a small island off Japan's northeastern coast, visitors make offerings at a shrine for unlikely local guardians: cats. The "Neko Jinja," or Cat Shrine, mythologizes cats as guardian angels of Tashirojima, where cats outnumber humans. Legend says the island used to be famous for sericulture and farmers would keep cats because they would chase away rats, protecting the silkworm cocoons from the rodents. Fishermen on the island have also traditionally believed that cats bring good luck, including large hauls of fish. Another legend says fishermen used to watch the cats' behavior for tips on the coming weather before heading to sea. The islanders have long coexisted with the cats. One day, however, a fisherman accidentally injured a cat while working. Feeling sorry for the injury, the islanders built the shrine for cats. Tashirojima is part of the city of Ishinomaki in Miyagi prefecture in the Tohoku region, which became well known after a tsunami devastated the area following a massive magnitude 9 earthquake on March 11, 2011. Over 100 cats inhabit Tashirojima, along with about 50 humans, according to the city's website. Along a paved road running about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) between the island's two ports, cats groom themselves and mingle with other cats. There are a few cafes and inns, but no car rental shops, gas stations or public transportation. Tourists are expected to walk up and down the island's hills while visiting. Most of the cats are used to tourists, who can be seen petting the friendly animals throughout the island.