Author: web desk

Pope Francis will preside at a funeral Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Thursday for his predecessor, former Pope Benedict, who died Saturday at 95.
More than 60,000 people are expected to attend. There will be official delegations from Italy and Benedict’s native Germany. Other leaders, including the king and queen of Belgium and the queen of Spain, and about 13 heads of state of state or government, will attend in a private capacity. Most countries will be represented by their ambassadors to the Vatican.
Here is a guide to what is expected to happen:
End of lying in state
Since Monday, the body of the emeritus pope has been lying in state in St. Peter’s Basilica, where more than 160,000 people had filed past to pay their respects as of midday Wednesday.
The viewing is due to end at 7 p.m. local time (1800 GMT). The body will then be placed in a coffin made of cypress wood, along with several papal items such as vestments symbolizing his role as pope and bishop, and coins and medals that were minted during his pontificate. Also included will be a lead tube with a deed in Latin listing the key points in his pontificate.
The cypress coffin will be closed privately in the presence of a few close aides, such as Archbishop Georg Ganswein, who was Benedict’s longtime secretary, and other members of the household where he lived after he resigned the papacy in 2013, the first pope to do so in 600 years.
Procession, prayers and Mass
At 8:45 a.m. local time (0745 GMT) Thursday, ushers known as papal gentlemen will carry the coffin in procession out of the basilica and place it on the steps facing St. Peter’s Square. The faithful will pray the rosary for about 45 minutes.
The funeral Mass presided over by Pope Francis is to start at 9:30 a.m. local time (0830 GMT). At first, the pope will sit before the coffin facing the crowd. The Sistine Chapel choir will start its singing with the introductory rites.
The pope will then move to a chair to the side of the altar and preside from there, sitting most of the time because of a knee aliment that impedes him from standing for too long. The celebrant standing at the altar will be Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals.
Francis will deliver the homily at the Mass, which will be con-celebrated by 120 cardinals, 400 bishops and nearly 4,000 priests.
At the end of the Mass, Francis will recite The Final Commendation and Farewell asking God to “console the Church.”
The liturgy for the funeral Mass is based mostly on that for a pope who dies while reigning, with some minor modifications, particularly in a few prayers and readings.
One prayer will include petitions to God for both Benedict and Francis.
Near the end of the Mass, Francis will sprinkle holy water on the coffin and wave incense around it.
He will say in Latin: “Gracious Father, we commend to your mercy Pope Emeritus Benedict, whom you made successor of Peter and shepherd of the Church, a fearless preacher of your word and a faithful minister of the divine mysteries.”
The choir will then sing in Latin: “May the angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs come and welcome you and take you into the holy city, the new and eternal Jerusalem.”
Private service and burial
The pallbearers will then carry the cypress coffin back into the basilica for a private service in which it will be sealed and wrapped in ribbons.
It will then be placed into a zinc coffin, which will be soldered shut. Both will then go into a larger, wooden coffin.
Benedict will then be buried according to his wishes in the same spot in the crypts under St. Peter’s Basilica where Pope John Paul II was originally interred in 2005 before his body was moved up to a chapel in the basilica in 2011.
The burial will also be a private service.

Source: Voice of America

Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland got a formal welcome into the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, taking the two-year seats they won unopposed in June.
In a tradition that Kazakhstan started in 2018, the five countries’ ambassadors installed their national flags Tuesday alongside those of other members outside the council chambers.
Mozambican Ambassador Pedro Comissário Afonso of Mozambique called it “a historic date” and Swiss Ambassador Pascale Baeriswyl said she felt “a deep sense of humility and responsibility” as their countries marked their first-ever terms on U.N.’s most powerful body. Malta joined for a second time, Ecuador a fourth and Japan a record 12th.

China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States are permanent, veto-wielding members of the group. Its 10 other members are elected by the 193-nation General Assembly for staggered, two-year terms. They’re allocated by global regions.
To many countries, winning a council seat is considered a signature diplomatic accomplishment that can raise a nation’s global profile and afford small countries a bigger voice than they might otherwise have in the major international peace and security issues of the day.
The council deploys peacekeeping missions, can approve sanctions and speaks out — sometimes — on conflicts and flashpoints, while also surveying such thematic issues as terrorism and arms control. While many matters are perennials on the agenda, council members also can use the platform to spotlight emerging concerns or topics of particular interest to them.
Countries often campaign for the council for years. Some 60 nations have never had a seat since the group’s formation in 1946.
The five latest members are replacing India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico and Norway. Their terms ended December 31.
The other current two-year members are Albania, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana and United Arab Emirates.

Source: Voice of America

Weather forecasters say it is “all systems go” for a major storm to sweep over California on Wednesday and Thursday, with peak intensity occurring from midnight Wednesday to noon Thursday.
Strong winds will add to impressive storm dynamics “setting the stage for a massive rainfall event” across Southern California’s south-facing coastal mountains, especially the Santa Ynez range in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, forecasters said.
That could cause dangerous conditions. On January 9, 2018, the community of Montecito on the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains was ravaged by a massive debris flow that killed 23 people when a downpour fell on a fresh wildfire burn scar.
Back-to-back-to-back powerful storms have left many Californians preparing for the worst.

In San Francisco, crews were rushing to clear trash, leaves and silt that clogged some of the city’s 25,000 storm drains during Saturday’s downpour before the next storm.
The National Weather Service is predicting up to 15 cm of rain in San Francisco with winds of speeds up to 48 kph with gusts of 96 kph.
Mayor London Breed said city workers may not have enough time to clean all the storm drains before Wednesday and asked the public to prepare by getting sandbags to prevent flooding, avoiding unnecessary travel and only calling 911 in a life-or-death emergency.
City officials had distributed 8,500 sandbags as of Tuesday, asking residents to only get them if they have experienced flooding in the past.
Tink Troy, who lives in South San Francisco, picked up some sandbags from the city’s public works department on Tuesday.
“They said (Saturday’s storm) was going to be bad, and it was really bad. Now they’re saying this one’s going to be worse. So I want to make sure I’m prepared and not having to do this when it’s pouring rain tomorrow,” she said.
The storms have meant one good thing: The snowpack covering California’s mountains is off to one of its best starts in 40 years, officials said Tuesday.
Roughly a third of California’s water each year comes from melted snow in the Sierra Nevada, a mountain range that covers the eastern part of the state. The state has built a complex system of canals and dams to capture that water and store it in huge reservoirs so it can be used the rest of the year when it doesn’t rain or snow.
That is why officials closely monitor how deep the snow is in the mountains — and Tuesday was the first formal snow survey of the winter, a sort of Groundhog Day event where Californians get their first glimpse of how helpful the winter might be.
Statewide, snowpack is at 174% of the historical average for this year, the third-best measurement in the past 40 years. Even more snow is expected later this week and over the weekend, giving officials hope for a wet winter the state so desperately needs.
But a good start doesn’t guarantee a good finish. Last year, the statewide snowpack was at 160% of average at the first survey. What followed were the three driest months ever recorded in California. By April 1 — when the Sierra snowpack is supposed to be at its peak — the snow was just 38% of historic average.

That history prompted muted optimism from state officials on Tuesday.
“While we see a terrific snowpack — and that in and of itself may be an opportunity to breathe a sigh of relief — we are by no means out of the woods when it comes to drought,” Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, said Tuesday after a ceremonial snow measurement in the community of Phillips, just west of Lake Tahoe.
This winter’s promising start was aided by a spate of strong storms, most notably on New Year’s Eve, when much of the state was drenched in heavy rain causing floods that killed one person and damaged a levee system in Sacramento County.
That storm was warmer, so it brought more rain than snow. Two more powerful storms are expected to hit the state this week, and these will be much colder. The National Weather Service says the mountains could get up to 1.52 meters of additional snow between the two storms.
While the precipitation seemed out-of-character for the parched state, it reflects the type of rainfall the state would expect to see during a normal winter but that has been absent in recent drought-driven years.
The storms in California are not enough to officially end the drought, now entering its fourth year. Most of the state’s reservoirs are still well below their capacity, with Lake Shasta 34% full and Lake Oroville just 38% full. It takes even longer for underground aquifers to refill, with groundwater providing about 38% of the state’s water supply each year.

“We know that it’ll take quite a bit of time and water to recover this amount of storage, which is why we don’t say that the drought is over once it starts raining,” said Jeanine Jones, drought manager for the California Department of Water Resources.

Source: Voice of America

The Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest technology trade show in the world, is once again open for business.
After two challenging years coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, which was particularly difficult for the conference and trade show industry, CES is expected to welcome about 100,000 attendees this week in Las Vegas.
That’s down about 40% from CES 2020 but still a significant jump in the numbers who attended in 2022. Over the past two years, CES managed to put on its show, which was all digital in 2021 and a hybrid digital and in-person in 2022 amid the Omicron surge.
This year, the Consumer Technology Association, the trade organization that puts on the annual event, says about one-third of the attendees are coming from outside the U.S.
“On the exhibitor side, a significant number come from outside of the U.S., making CES a truly global event,” said John Kelley, vice president and acting show director for CES, who spoke with VOA via Skype.
In fact, of the estimated 3,200 exhibitors who are expected to show off their wares, more than 1,400, or 43%, are coming from outside the U.S.
In the African pavilion, a dozen companies from the Democratic Republic of the Congo will be showcasing their homegrown innovations. The Ukraine pavilion will include technology firms from the Eastern European nation under siege by Russian forces.
Organizers also expect hundreds of Chinese firms to exhibit, despite recent COVID-related requirements for people traveling from China to the U.S.
“The Chinese presence at CES has always been quite pronounced and we’re starting to see it come back this year, which is quite exciting,” Kelley said.
Digital health, transportation technology and the metaverse are just a few of the latest technological innovations being showcased in Las Vegas.
Addressing global concerns
This year’s theme is technology helping to address the world’s greatest challenges, said Kelley.
“We’ve partnered with a U.N.-affiliated group, the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, to showcase how technology is supporting what we call human securities, or human rights,” he said, which includes food, political and environmental security, and mobility.
Show organizers expect increased focus on the metaverse — a shared digital reality connecting users — and on Web3, also known as Web 3.0, which proponents describe as the third generation of the World Wide Web.
CES has partnered with CoinDesk, a news site specializing in bitcoin and digital currencies, to build a studio on the show floor to showcase these types of Web3 applications, including blockchain and crypto.
Cool cars and trash-collecting sharks
From the internet highway to the interstate, automobiles have always had a major presence at the show, with more than 300 auto industry exhibitors showing off their latest products.
Organizers say there is also growth in marine technology, with boat manufacturers moving toward sustainable forms of energy.
The battery-operated WasteShark by the Dutch firm RanMarine Technology is an autonomous surface vessel designed to remove algae, biomass, and floating pollution such as plastics from lakes, ponds, and other coastal waterways.
“There’s a lot of people doing really great stuff out in the ocean and cleaning that up,” said company CEO Richard Hardiman, who spoke with VOA via Skype.
“Our mandate for our company is to clean it before it goes into the ocean,” he said. “So we’re trying to, sort of, what we call, ‘capture that waste at source,’ before it pollutes the ocean.”
Digital health
Another area that’s grown significantly at CES is digital health, CTA’s Kelley said. Dozens of exhibitors will be showcasing the latest health technologies, including new applications and diagnostic tools.
“What this does is give consumers access to their information, access to their data, and allows them to make decisions based on the data that they receive,” he said.
Canadian-based eSight Eyewear plans to display a headset designed to help people with visual impairments such as age-related macular degeneration, also known as AMD.
“When a person with AMD looks at your face, they wouldn’t see any distinct features; it would just be flesh tones,” explained Roland Mattern, eSight Eyewear’s director of marketing, who spoke with VOA via Skype.
Once the user puts on the device, they will be able to see distinct features such eyebrows, mouth and eyes, Mattern said.
“Users can literally see your entire face,” he said. “Your reaction. And that is an important feature because so much of communication is being able to see the other person’s reaction.”
It’s just one example of the many technologies on display this year at CES 2023, where companies from all corners of the world will come together to share their latest innovations.

Source: Voice of America