 Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the Voice of America. I'm Ashley Thompson. And I'm Dan Novak. This program is designed for English learners, so we speak a little slower, and we use words and phrases, especially written for people learning English. Coming up on the program, I report on a Ghanaian student who biked across Africa to get to school in Egypt. John Russell has a story on Southeast Asian nations considering sharing energy supplies. Gina Bennett has today's Health and Lifestyle report on why U.S. officials voted against approving an ALS treatment. Later, Andrew Smith and Jill Robbins present the English lesson of the day. But first, Mamadou Safayo Berry lives in the West African nation of Guinea. He wanted to study Islamic theology at a top school in Cairo, Egypt. Without money to pay for transport, Berry drew a map of Africa and headed out on a used bicycle for the trip across the continent. Carrying only a change of clothes, a flashlight, and a small tool, the 25-year-old rode through jungles, deserts, and conflict areas in the hope of getting accepted to the school and finding a way to pay for it. Four months and seven countries later, he is in Cairo with a full scholarship to all Azar University. That is one of the world's oldest and most respected Sunni Muslim learning centers. �If you have a dream, stay with it and be strong� Berry said. God will help you. Students of West Africans like Berry take risky journeys across the Sahara Desert each year, searching for a better life. But many never make it. Nearly 500 people died or disappeared on West African migration routes last year, data from the International Organization for Migration shows. Berry decided the risk was worth the reward. �I had to fight� Berry said last August in Chad. Berry rode about 100 kilometers each day. He rode through Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin, and Niger. He had to stop in Injamina, the Chadian capital because of the ongoing conflict in Sudan. He said he had already been detained three times, twice in Burkina Faso and once in Togo. There security forces held him for nine days without charge before releasing him for $56. That was all of his money for the rest of the trip, he said. �I often slept in the bush because I was afraid of people in the cities� Berry said. �I thought they would take my bike and hurt me� Berry's luck changed again in Chad. There a local philanthropist, who had read about his trip online, offered to fly him directly to Egypt and avoid the fighting in Sudan. Berry arrived in Cairo on September 5 and days later received a full scholarship to Al-Azhar. He intends to return to Guinea when his studies are complete to spread the faith that has taken him so far. �When I return to my country, I would like to be someone who teaches Islam and tells people how to do good things� he said. Southeast Asian nations are increasingly looking to share power as a result of concerns about climate change. Malaysia and Indonesia signed a deal in Bali, Indonesia in August, to study 18 possible areas where cross-border power lines can be set up. Those links could eventually create power equal to what 33 nuclear power plants would produce in a year. The links are economically and technically possible, and now are supported by regional governments� said Beni Suryadi, a power expert at the ASEAN Center for Energy in Jakarta, Indonesia. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, is a political and economic group of ten countries across a large area. The group includes small countries such as Brunei and Singapore, as well as larger ones such as Indonesia and Vietnam. Under power purchases accounted for just 2.7% of the region�s capacity in 2017, says the Global Interconnection Journal. But those were between two countries, such as Thailand and Laos. Now more countries are looking at power-sharing as a way to move their economies away from coal and other fossil fuels. Vietnam would like a regional grid, so it could sell clean energy from offshore wind to its neighbors. And the Malaysian area of Sarawak is looking to sell its hydropower to neighboring Indonesia. The plan for a regional grid between the ten ASEAN members was developed 20 years ago, but progress has been slowed by problems, including technical barriers and political mistrust. The region now recognizes it must move faster. Climate change could reduce the region�s economic growth by more than a third by the middle of the century. A report presented at the 2021 UN Climate Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, says. Demand for electricity is rising, and governments have realized the move away from fossil fuels requires an interconnected grid, Sir Yadi observed. It has become a crucial need for every country, he said. In the past, countries in the region paid more attention to energy security. They used fossil fuels and often built more capacity than they needed. But renewable energy costs are falling, making hydroelectric, solar, and wind power more affordable. All ASEAN countries, apart from the Philippines, have promised to stop adding carbon to the atmosphere by 2050. So, arguments in favor of an interconnected grid appear to be winning, but issues remain. One of ASEAN's central policies is non-interference, which means members are less likely to do joint projects. Energy needs within a country sometimes conflict with the interests of an interconnected grid. Nadila Shani, another expert at the ASEAN Centre for Energy, said that this creates a difficult position for some countries. The countries could sell clean energy to neighbors, for the region to move away from fossil fuels, or they could use those resources to meet their own climate targets. The region's lack of a legal agreement for such things as setting submarine power cables is another difficult issue. Not all the technical problems have been solved. Voltages used by each country can differ, as do the capacities of their grids. ASEAN countries whose grids cross borders, like Thailand, need to upgrade them, said Harold Linc, President of Thailand's Association of Private Power Producers. You need a huge amount of electricity, and they want it green. And where do you get it from? For some countries, it is more difficult to make it green, Linc said. I'm John Russell. The United States Health Advisers voted against an experimental treatment for ALS disease last week. The vote came after years of efforts by ALS patients and their families in support of the unproven medical treatment. ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Patients with ALS slowly lose the ability to control muscle movements, the ability to speak, eat, move, and breathe. The U.S. National Institutes of Health says people can get the disease at any age. It most commonly develops between the ages of 55 and 75. Last Wednesday, a group of health advisors for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, voted 17 to 1 against the treatment from Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics. The Israel-based company's treatment, Neurone, uses stem cells. These are cells that can develop into many kinds of body cells. The group found the treatment was not effective for patients with ALS. A member of the group representing ALS patients was the only vote in favor. One expert did not register a vote. Lisa Lee, a health expert from Virginia Tech University, voted against the treatment. She said creating false hope can be considered a moral injury, and the use of statistical magic or manipulation to provide false hope is problematic. The FDA is not required to accept the group's vote. However, the agency's own scientists said earlier in the week that Brainstorm's treatment was scientifically incomplete. Brainstorm and the ALS community wanted to use the meeting to change the FDA's thinking about the Neurone treatment. Brainstorm's 200-patient study failed to show that Neurone extended life, slowed the disease, or improved patients' ability to move. But the FDA agreed to bring outside advisors together after ALS patients and supporters submitted 30,000 signatures seeking a public meeting. In the last year, the FDA has approved two new experimental drugs for ALS, Relyvrio and Calciti. The approvals followed intense campaigns from the ALS community, although there have been a limited number of scientific studies of the treatments. The FDA has used the term regulatory flexibility when considering experimental treatments for some conditions, including ALS and Alzheimer's. But the agency appears unwilling to overlook the results of Brainstorm's approval effort. Recent information about manufacturing and quality control was missing. Dr. Kenneth Fischbeck of the National Institutes of Health said it really is a disease that needs a safe and effective treatment, and there are a lot of other prospects out there that we need to encourage. Treating one like this would get in the way of that. At last week's meeting, ALS patients, their family members, and doctors spoke in support of Brainstorm's treatment. Several presented before and after videos that showed patients who had taken part in Brainstorm's study. The videos showed the patients walking, climbing stairs, and doing other activities. Mitzi Klingenberg spoke for her son Matt Klingenberg, who doctors found to have ALS in 2018. She said, when Matt is on Neurone, it helps him. When he's off of it, he gets worse. The FDA is expected to issue its decision on the treatment by December 8th. I'm Gina Bennett. Gina Bennett joins me now to talk more about today's health and lifestyle story. Welcome, Gina. Thanks, Dan. This is my first time to be on the podcast, so I'm really excited about it. Glad to have you on. Your story today is about an experimental treatment for ALS. The story says US health advisors voted against this treatment. But this came after years of efforts by ALS patients and their families to support the treatment. That's right, Dan. The ALS community really supported this treatment. The community got 30,000 signatures to allow the public meeting for health advisors to consider the treatment. But the only advisor to vote yes was one representing ALS patients. Did the group say why they voted against the treatment? Yes, the article does talk about why the group voted against the treatment. Some scientists have said that a study using the treatment was scientifically incomplete. There was information about manufacturing and quality control missing from the study. Is there any good news we can take away from the story? Yes, even if the FDA vote doesn't turn out in favor of the ALS patients, the good news from the story is other intense campaigns from the community have caused the FDA to approve to other new experimental drugs for the disease in the past year. So there's some hope. Interesting. Thanks for answering my questions, Gina. Hope to have you back soon. You're welcome. It was a pleasure to be here. My name is Anna Matteo. And my name is Jill Robbins. And I'm Andrew Smith. You're listening to the Lesson of the Day on the Learning English podcast. Welcome to the part of the show where we help you do more with our series Let's Learn English. The series shows Anna Matteo in her work and life in Washington, D.C. In our last Lesson of the Day, we listened closely to the pronunciation of a small but important word, the verb can. We also listened to the verb's negative forms, cannot and can't. In today's lesson, we're going to connect this small word to something important. Anna wants her friend, Pete, to know. In Lesson 20 of Let's Learn English, Pete looks sad. Anna wants to know why. And then she gives him some important advice. Let's listen to the beginning of Lesson 20. Hi there. Washington, D.C. is a great place to work. Many people here work in government and politics, but there are many other jobs. You can work at a hospital, a university. You can work in a coffee shop. Wait a minute. I think I see a friend of mine. Pete, is that you? Hi, Anna. You look different. Your beard is really big. You don't like it, do you? No, no. You just look different. So what's wrong? You look sad. I don't have a job. Sorry, I can't hear you. I do not have a job. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, Pete. I don't have a skill. Everyone has a skill. You need to find yours. Anna said something really important in those last two sentences. Let's hear them one more time. Everyone has a skill. You need to find yours. Your skills are special knowledge and abilities that help you do something well. For many skills, you need time and training to develop them. For example, doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers, musicians, and athletes all have special skills that take time to develop. In lesson 20, when Pete is not feeling good about himself, he doesn't think he has any useful skills. Jill, I think this is a feeling that perhaps some of our listeners can relate to. Maybe they have felt the same way from time to time. Yeah, me too. And you know, what's interesting to me is that sometimes people cannot really see the skills they do have. That's right. It takes another person to help them see what skills they have. And that's what happens in lesson 20. Anna helps Pete realize that he does have some skills. Let's listen. No, I can't code. I can't teach. I can't cook. Anna, I can't do anything. This is sad. I'm going to write about my feelings in my blog. You write a blog? Yeah, I write a blog. How many followers do you have? I don't know. 59,538. Pete, that's a lot of followers. You can make money writing. Writing is easy. Everyone can write. Not everyone can write well. You can be a writer. I can be a writer? I can be a writer. I can be a writer. Thanks, Anna. It can feel good to realize that you have a skill that is useful. But some skills are more obvious or easy to see than others. For example, an airline pilot has the obvious skill of knowing how to fly a plane. And we generally call these kinds of obvious skills hard skills. Other examples of hard skills are computer coding, engineering, painting, construction, automotive repair, and cooking. Hard skills are generally actions that you can see or actions that produce a product like a new computer program. But there's another category of skills, and we call these soft skills. Soft skills tend to be a bit more difficult to see because they relate less to actions and things like fixing a car or a bicycle. Instead, soft skills relate to the way people think and behave with other people. For example, a soft skill can include being a good listener. The person who is a good listener might not get much attention from others or produce a product like a new computer program. So sometimes other people do not realize how important soft skills can be. I'm Jill Robbins, and you're listening to the Lesson of the Day on the Learning English Podcast. Andrew, in addition to being a good listener, what are some other soft skills? The ability to communicate well, to keep things well organized, to manage conflict or disagreements, to be creative, to keep a positive attitude, to help people connect with each other, and to think carefully to help solve problems. All of these are soft skills. I can see how all of those soft skills are important, but I can also see how people might not even realize they have them, or they might not realize how important those skills are. And if you think about it, universities do not give degrees in things like being a good listener. That means it can be harder to show that you have these soft skills when you are trying to get a job. But HR departments look for both hard skills and soft skills. So you should list those soft skills on your resume or CV. HR stands for human resources. That's the area of a business or organization that deals with hiring people to work. Your resume or CV is a list of your education and work experience. Jill, what can we say about skills for learning a language? Well, there are obvious skills like speaking, reading, listening, and writing, but there's another whole category of skills that help with language learning. And these skills involve understanding different cultures and sometimes changing the way we communicate based on those cultures. Do you have any examples? Sure. In some cultures, it's normal or OK to say no in a very obvious or direct way. For example, French people disagree a bit more directly than Americans, but Japanese culture is less direct. Instead of just saying no, they might pause for a few seconds or say something like, maybe. The listener is supposed to understand that the pause means no, even though the Japanese person did not say it directly. Communicating across cultures is another big and interesting topic we can talk more about in another lesson of the day. In the meantime, we invite our listeners to think about the skills they have. And if you are feeling like heat in lesson 20, remember that you might have skills that you are not aware of. Talk to your friends and family, the people who know you best. They might be able to tell you something about yourself that you did not know before. And it takes skill to learn English and to understand everything from the lesson of the day on the Learning English podcast. So we hope you feel good about your own language learning and keep developing your skills with all of the programs from VOA Learning English. Thanks for listening to our program. I'm Jill Robbins. And I'm Andrew Smith. And that's our program for today. Join us again tomorrow to keep learning English through stories from around the world. I'm Ashley Thompson. And I'm Dan Novak.