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NEW YORK — Parisa Imanirad, a scientist and cancer researcher from San Francisco, is married and has a wide circle of friends. But once or twice a week, she goes to a restaurant by herself. Imanirad said dining alone gives her time to think or read. She tries not to touch her phone and relishes the silence. “It’s like a spa, but a different type,” Imanirad said during a recent solo lunch at Spruce, an upscale restaurant in San Francisco. Imanirad isn’t alone in her desire to be alone. In the United States, solo dining reservations have risen 29% over the last two years, according to OpenTable, the restaurant reservation site. They’re up 18% this year in Germany and 14% in the United Kingdom. Japan even has a special term for solo dining: “ohitorisama,” which means “alone” but with honorifics spoken before and after the word to make parties of one feel less hesitant. In a recent survey, Japan’s Hot Pepper Gourmet Eating Out Research Institute found that 23% of Japanese people eat out alone, up from 18% in 2018. As a result, many restaurants in Japan and elsewhere are redoing their seating, changing their menus and adding other special touches to appeal to solo diners. “Even so-called family restaurants are increasing counter seats for solitary diners, and restaurants are offering courses with smaller servings so a person eating alone gets a variety of dishes,” said Masahiro Inagaki, a senior researcher at the institute. OpenTable CEO Debby Soo thinks remote work is one reason for the increase, with diners seeking respites from their home offices. But she thinks there are deeper reasons, too. “I think there’s a broader movement of self-love and self-care and really … enjoying your own company,” Soo said. The pandemic also made social interactions less feasible and therefore less important while eating out, said Anna Mattila, a professor of lodging management at Penn State University who has studied solo dining. And smartphones help some restaurant patrons feel connected to others even when they’re by themselves, she said. “The social norms have changed. People don’t look at solo diners anymore and think, ‘You must be a loner,’” Mattila said. More people live and travel solo The growth comes as more people are living alone. In 2019, the Pew Research Center found that 38% of U.S. adults ages 25 to 54 were living without a partner, up from 29% in 1990. In Japan, single households now make up one-third of the total; that’s expected to climb to 40% by 2040, according to government data. Increasing interest in solo travel — particularly among travelers ages 55 and over — is also leading to more meals alone. On a recent solo trip to Lucerne, Switzerland, Carolyn Ray was stunned when the hostess led her to a beautiful lake-view table set for one, complete with a small vase of flowers. Ray, the CEO and editor of JourneyWoman, a website for solo women travelers over 50, said other restaurants have tried to seat her toward the back or pointedly asked if someone will be joining her. Ray counsels women planning to dine alone to go somewhere else if they’re treated rudely or given a bad table. “It’s almost like the world hasn’t caught up with this idea that we are on our own because we want to be on our own and we’re independent and empowered,” she said. “We can go into any restaurant we want and have a table for one and feel good about it.” Shawn Singh, a Houston-based content creator and restaurant reviewer, said he eats alone about 70% of the time. If the idea of venturing out for a solitary meal is intimidating, he suggests going to lunch instead of dinner — when tables are usually more crowded with groups — or going early on a weekday. “The best way to see a restaurant you’ve been wanting to see for a long time is definitely going solo,” Singh said. “If I go at 5 p.m. and alone, I haven’t been denied at one place ever.” Restaurants aren’t always thrilled to seat a single diner at a table that could fit more. A Michelin-starred London restaurant, Alex Dilling at Hotel Cafe Royal, caused a stir last year when it started charging solo patrons the same price as two customers. Its eight-course dinner tasting menu, which includes caviar and Cornish squid, costs 215 pounds ($280) per person. The restaurant, which has only 34 seats, didn’t respond to a request for comment. But its website doesn’t allow reservations for fewer than two people. 'Playing the long game' Other restaurants say it’s worth seating one person at a table made for two because solo diners tend to be loyal, repeat customers. “While there may be a short-term loss there, I think we’re kind of playing the long game and establishing ourselves as a place that’s truly special,” said Drew Brady, chief operating officer at Overthrow Hospitality, which operates 11 vegan restaurants in New York. Brady has seen an increase in solo diners since the pandemic, and says they're evenly split between men and women. At the company’s flagship restaurant, Avant Garden, they make up as much as 8% of patrons. In response, the restaurant teamed up with Lightspeed, a restaurant tech and consulting company, to develop a solo dining program. Avant Garden now has a spacious table designed for solo diners, with a $65 four-course menu fashioned like a passport to enhance the sense of adventure. If solo diners order a cocktail, a bartender mixes it tableside. Mattila, at Penn State, said restaurants might want to consider additional changes. Her research has found that solo diners prefer angular shapes — in lights, tables or plates, for example — to round ones, which are more associated with the connectedness of groups. They also prefer slow-tempo music. Jill Weber, the founder of Sojourn Philly, a Philadelphia company that owns two restaurants and a wine bar, said she adds a communal table at special events such as wine tastings so individuals have a place to gather. She also doesn't offer specials designed for two. Weber, who is also an archaeologist, loves dining alone when she's traveling. “There’s something about not having to agree on where to go and everything that goes with that. You have the freedom to stay as long as you want, order what you want and sit with those things," she said. “It also feels brave sometimes.”

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Washington — When Jerome Powell delivered a high-profile speech last month, the Federal Reserve chair came the closest he ever had to declaring that the inflation surge that gripped the nation for three painful years was now essentially defeated. And not only that. The Fed's high interest rates, Powell said, had managed to achieve that goal without causing a widely predicted recession and high unemployment. Yet most Americans are not in the same celebratory mood about the plummeting of inflation in the face of the high borrowing rates the Fed engineered. Though consumer sentiment is slowly rising, a majority of Americans in some surveys still complain about elevated prices, given that the costs of such necessities as food, gas and housing remain far above where they were before the pandemic erupted in 2020. The relatively sour mood of the public is creating challenges for Vice President Kamala Harris as she seeks to succeed President Joe Biden. Despite the fall of inflation and strong job growth, many voters say they're dissatisfied with the Biden-Harris administration's economic record — and especially frustrated by high prices. That disparity points to a striking gap between how economists and policymakers assess the past several years of the economy and how many ordinary Americans do. In his remarks last month, given at an annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Powell underscored how the Fed's sharp rate hikes succeeded much more than most economists had predicted in taming inflation without hammering the economy — a notoriously difficult feat known as a “soft landing.” “Some argued that getting inflation under control would require a recession and a lengthy period of high unemployment,” Powell said. Ultimately, though, he noted, “the 4-1/2 percentage point decline in inflation from its peak two years ago has occurred in a context of low unemployment — a welcome and historically unusual result.” With high inflation now essentially conquered, Powell and other central bank officials are preparing to cut their key interest rate in mid-September for the first time in more than four years. The Fed is becoming more focused on sustaining the job market with the help of lower interest rates than on continuing to fight inflation. Many Americans 'have taken a big hit' Many consumers, by contrast, are still preoccupied most by today's price levels. “From the viewpoint of economists, central bankers, how we think about inflation, it really has been a remarkable success, how inflation went up, has come back, and is around the target,” said Kristin Forbes, an economist at MIT and a former official at the United Kingdom's central bank, the Bank of England. “But from the viewpoint of households, it has not been so successful,” she added. “Many have taken a big hit to their wages. Many of them feel like the basket of goods they buy is now much more expensive.” Two years ago, economists feared that the Fed’s ongoing rate hikes — it ultimately raised its benchmark rate more than 5 percentage points to a 23-year high in the fastest pace in four decades — would hammer the economy and cause millions of job losses. After all, that’s what happened when the Fed under Chair Paul Volcker sent its benchmark rate to nearly 20% in the early 1980s, ultimately throttling a brutal inflationary spell. In fact, at Jackson Hole two years ago, Powell himself warned that using high interest rates to defeat the inflation spike “would bring some pain to households and businesses.” Yet now, according to the Fed’s preferred measure, inflation is 2.5%, not far above its 2% target. And while a weaker pace of hiring has caused some concerns, the unemployment rate is at a still-low 4.3%, and the economy expanded at a solid 3% annual rate last quarter. While no Fed official will outright declare victory, some take satisfaction in defying the predictions of doom and gloom. “2023 was a historic year for inflation falling,” said Austan Goolsbee, president of the Chicago Fed. “And there wasn’t a recession, and that’s unprecedented. And so we will be studying the mechanics of how that happened for a long time.” Measures of consumer sentiment, though, indicate that three years of hurtful inflation have dimmed many Americans’ outlook. In addition, high loan rates, along with elevated housing prices, have led many young workers to fear that homeownership is increasingly out of reach. 'Inflation overhang' Last month, the consulting firm McKinsey said that 53% of consumers in its most recent survey “still say that rising prices and inflation are among their concerns.” McKinsey's analysts attributed the escalated figure to “an ‘inflation overhang." That's the belief among analysts that it can take months, if not years, for consumers to adjust emotionally to a much higher level of prices even if their pay is keeping pace. Economists point to several reasons for the wide gap in perceptions between economists and policymakers on the one hand and everyday consumers and workers on the other. The first is that the Fed tailors its interest rate policies to manage inflation — the rate of price changes — rather than price levels themselves. So when inflation spikes, the central bank's goal is to return it to a sustainable level, currently defined as 2%, rather than to reverse the price increases. The Fed's policymakers expect average wages to catch up and eventually to allow consumers to afford the higher prices. “Central bankers think even if inflation gets away from 2% for a period, as long as it comes back, that’s fine,” Forbes said. "Victory, mission accomplished. But the amount of time inflation is away from 2% can have a major cost.” Research by Stefanie Stantcheva, a Harvard economist, and two colleagues found that most people's views of inflation are very different from those of economists. Economists in general are more likely to regard inflation as a consequence of strong growth. They often describe inflation as a result of an “overheating” economy: Low unemployment, strong job growth and rising wages lead businesses to sharply increase prices without necessarily losing sales. By contrast, a survey by Stantcheva found, ordinary Americans “view inflation as an unambiguously bad thing and very rarely as a sign of a good economy or as a byproduct of positive developments.” Her survey respondents also said they believed that inflation stems from excessive government spending or greedy businesses. They “do not believe that (central bank) policymakers face trade-offs, such as having to reduce economic activity or increase unemployment to control inflation.” Perceived recession As a result, few consumers probably worried about the potential for a downturn as a result of the Fed's rate hikes. One opinion survey, in fact, found that many consumers believed, incorrectly, that the economy was in a recession because inflation was so high. At the Jackson Hole conference, Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, argued that central banks cannot guarantee that high inflation will never appear — only that they will try to drive it back down when it does. “I get this question quite often in Parliament," Bailey said. “People say, ‘Well you failed to control inflation.’ I said no.” The test of a central bank, he continued, “is not that we will never have inflation. The test of the regime is how well, once you get hit by these shocks, you bring it back to target.” Still, Forbes suggested that there are lessons to be learned from the post-COVID inflation spike, including whether inflation was allowed to stay too high for too long, both in the U.S. and the U.K. The Fed has long been criticized for having taken too long to start raising its benchmark rate. Inflation first spiked in the spring of 2021. Yet the Fed, under the mistaken impression that high inflation would prove “transitory," didn't begin raising rates until nearly a year later. “Maybe should we rethink ... where we seem to be now: ‘As long as it comes back four to five years later, that’s fine,’ ” she said. “Maybe four to five years is too long. "How much unemployment or slowdown in growth should we be willing to accept to shorten the length of time that inflation is too high?”

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Geneva — The arrest and charging of Telegram founder Pavel Durov is a complex case which raises a lot of human rights concerns, the United Nations said Tuesday. The Russian-born chief of the popular but controversial messaging app was sensationally detained at Le Bourget airport outside Paris on August 24 and then charged with a litany of violations related to the messaging app. He was also banned from leaving France. Numerous questions have been raised about the timing and circumstances of Durov's detention, with supporters seeing the 39-year-old as a freedom of speech champion and detractors as a menace who willfully allowed Telegram to get out of control. "This is a very complex case. It raises a lot of human rights concerns," said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Human Rights Office. She told a media briefing that the Geneva-based agency was considering publishing a paper setting out "the parameters within which these situations should be looked at." She also cited the recent blocking of X in Brazil, where the country's supreme court on Monday ratified the decision by one of its judges to suspend the social media platform for alleged judicial transgressions. Brazil's suspension of X "also raises similar concerns about states having the duty to ensure that social media platforms comply with the law that freedom of expression is permitted," but in line with certain restrictions, Shamdasani said. She called for any restrictions that are imposed to be "proportional" and "in line with international human rights standards." "So we are following this case, and it's difficult for us to get more specific at this point" on the case and on the charges against Durov, because the U.N. Human Rights Office does not have access "to the full information." She said states should be able to regulate platforms, with regulations comply with laws consistent with international human rights law. "The principles of legality, necessity and proportionality, hate speech, incitement to hatred or violence, harmful disinformation, need to be addressed," she said. U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk wrote to the owner of X Elon Musk in November 2022, urging him to make respect for human rights central to the social network. In an open letter, he warned against propagating hate speech and misinformation and highlighted the need to protect user privacy.

Wellington, New Zealand — New Zealand's spy service branded China a "complex intelligence concern" Tuesday and warned the Pacific nation was vulnerable to foreign interference.    In an annual threat report, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service said several countries were undertaking "malicious activity" on its shores and called out China's attempts as "complex and deceptive."  In particular, Beijing was accused of using front organizations to connect with local groups to replace authentic and diverse community views with those approved by the ruling party.   In one example, a Chinese-language community news outlet parroted Beijing's talking points, it said.  "These front organizations will often appear to be community-based... but their true affiliation, direction and funding sources are hidden," the report said.   The unusually blunt language comes as New Zealand's recently elected center-right government tilts the country's foreign policy more closely toward traditional Western allies.   This comes after years of growing economic ties with China — New Zealand's biggest trade partner.   In March, Wellington publicly said a Chinese state-sponsored group was behind a 2021 malicious cyber-attack that infiltrated sensitive government computer systems.   China dismissed allegations of hacking and accused New Zealand critics of being puppets of Washington.   'Manage them'   New Zealand's spy agency said the country's geographical position and role in the Pacific region made it "vulnerable" to other countries striving for greater influence.  That included Russia, which "likely monitors the public statements and social media accounts" of people.  In another case, an unnamed country contacted a local New Zealand council and offered to pay for a community event if they agreed to restrict a particular religious group.   Andrew Hampton, Director-General of Security, said the report aimed to be upfront about threats facing the country.   "The point is not to alarm anyone but to alert New Zealanders to the threats so that we can work together to manage them," he said.   Earlier this year, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the country could no longer depend on the "splendid isolation" provided by its geography.  China remains New Zealand's biggest trading partner — exporting diary, meat and wood products that exceeded US$13.2 billion, according to the most recent official data.    Luxon has warned that although China was "a country of undoubted influence," different values mean "there are issues on which we cannot and will not agree." 

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.

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.

SYDNEY — Global concerns over plastic pollution and cuts to fossil fuel use are behind a new Australian-led initiative to develop a new generation of 100 percent compostable plastic. Experts estimate that more than 170 trillion pieces of plastic are floating in the world's oceans. There are growing concerns about the impact of micro-plastics on health and the environment.     The Bioplastics Innovation Hub aims to “revolutionize” plastic packaging by making biologically-made plastic that can break down in compost, land or water.   The aim is to produce water bottles, for example, using bioplastics derived from waste products from the food industry.  The green plastic scheme brings together the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, the CSIRO - Australia’s national science agency - and Murdoch University in Perth in a multi-million dollar collaboration with industry partners.  Andrew Whiteley, a CSIRO research program director, told VOA the technology could be ground-breaking. “What we are really essentially doing is trying to phase out those fossil fuel plastics and bring in this new generation of bioplastics, which take over the roles of the plastics that we have already been using. So it is, really, just that switch over and going forward in a more sustainable way using these bioplastics.”  Australian states and territories have been phasing out various plastics for several years. At the start of September 2024, more items have been banned in South Australia and Western Australia, including polystyrene containers and cups, plastic confetti, and plastic coffee cups and lids. Chile, Kenya, India and New Zealand have also imposed restrictions on some single-use plastic products, such as bags or cutlery. But there is a warning that the degradation of everyday plastic items, from packaging and in clothing, is creating microplastics that pollute the environment and pose a risk to health.     Michelle Blewitt is the program director of the Australian Microplastic Assessment Project, a national citizen science organization, which has been monitoring microplastics. She told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. the microplastic problem is getting worse. “Micro plastics are particles that are less than 5mm in size and they can break up into smaller and smaller pieces until they become airborne.  So, they are found in our waterways and in the air and our homes and certainly on the beaches around our waterways as well.” CSIRO scientists say the biodegradable plastic scheme is part of Australia's commitment to the United Nations Global Treaty on plastic pollution.  It aims to be a legally binding international agreement between 175 countries to reduce the production and consumption of high-risk plastic. About 98% of single-use plastic products are made from fossil fuels, according to the U.N.

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.

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.

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.

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.