Month: August 2017

Rural America Braces for Labor Shortages After Immigration Crackdown

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

At CareerLink, the state job agency in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, custodial worker and former welder Glenn Hendrickson was looking to change careers. Hendrickson was just beginning his search for a new line of work and he did not yet know what would pique his interest.

But he for sure wasn’t interested in farm work, except as a last resort.

“I’ve had a lot of friends who have had summer jobs, like when they were in high school, picking fruit but I doubt anyone would make a career out of it,” he said.

According to local farm sector employers, most workers are paid well above Pennsylvania’s minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Crew chiefs and foremen on some orchards earn close to $19 per hour. Yet few native-born Americans are willing to do this work, even if unemployed says Alan Dudley, administrator of the Gettysburg CareerLink office.

“The work is difficult, especially in the fields, and it’s not necessarily unskilled work,” he said. “Orchard owners want skilled people to harvest apples so they get the best return on their crop.”

Adams County’s farms, orchards, and processing plants are where the jobs are. The so-called “fruit belt” of vast peach and apple orchards extends across the region’s rolling green hills, along with the packing and processing companies and other agricultural-related businesses.

Tourism, with the 3 million visitors drawn annually to the historic Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg, is the other main economic generator.

Adams County’s $580-million fruit industry depends heavily on immigrant labor, which is why the country may be facing an unintended consequence of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Businesses in the agricultural-based economy are experiencing labor shortages, and orchard owners are bracing for the possibility of not having enough workers for the fall harvest.

Fleeing workforce

Last month, six Hispanic employees of a county fruit-packing company, which does not want to be identified, were picked up by local police and turned over to immigration agents, who sent them to a detention facility. These and other detentions have had a chilling effect on the county’s Hispanic residents, who make up 6.5 percent of the population of some 100,000 people.

Yet because of the immigration crackdown, workers are not showing up or in some instances, have fled. The local plant of Hillandale Farms, a major national egg producer and distributor, was desperately seeking to fill vacant jobs this summer, according to a company official, because much of its Hispanic work force had disappeared.

As the autumn harvest approaches, the demand for labor is accelerating, Dudley says, not just in the orchards but also in the fruit processing and other agriculture-related industries.

“So they’re coming into their busy hiring season right now. For instance, Knouse Foods just last week posted about eight new positions on our job search website.”

‘No roving checkpoints’

Adams County voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in last November’s presidential election.

At the Latimore Valley fair in June, which attracted several thousand people to watch antique car races, trucking company secretary Kim Sanders expressed strong support for President Trump’s policy of arresting and deporting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes.

But, echoing the views of others at the fair who were asked the same question, Sanders wants the law-abiding undocumented immigrants to be able to stay.

“I hate to say it but there are not enough American people to go out and work on a farm, or do planting and pick vegetables like they will,” she said.

Republican Congressman Scott Perry, whose district includes Adams County, has heard the concerns of orchard owners and other businesses in the fruit industry. Perry told VOA his message to them is that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has assured him nothing has changed in its enforcement actions.

“There’s not like roving checkpoints,” he said. “They’re targeted enforcement.”

But ICE has changed its policies somewhat. Acting-ICE chief Tom Homan told reporters at the White House last month that “…no populations are off the table. So non-criminals, those who have got a court order from a judge that refuse to leave, we’re looking for.”

Under the last two years of the previous Obama administration, non-criminals were not a priority and were often let go if detained.

Growers such as Kay Hollabaugh are running out of patience. She met last month with Congressman Perry and local lawmakers to express her concerns about the future of the Adams County fruit belt if the immigrant labor force is driven out.

“Those people who are making the laws of our land, eat every day,” she said. “If we could simply stop producing food for a month – OK, no food, no food – I think perhaps that would make some bells go off.”

Ripening fruit

The Trump administration’s immigration policy has galvanized activists in Adams County to press for immigration reform and to lobby local lawmakers to vote against measures that would target immigrant communities.

Jenny Dumont, a Spanish professor at Gettysburg College who leads the immigration lobbying effort for a grassroots group called “Gettysburg Rising, blames the Trump administration’s rhetoric for creating unwarranted fears about the undocumented.

“It’s pretty well documented that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans,” Dumont said. “My sense is that people, if they’ve had contact with immigrants here, that they understand the contributions that they make, they’re able to see them as people not just the label immigrant, the other.”

But Congressman Perry said the border would have to be secured before Americans would agree to any immigration reform measure.

“If you just seal the border without doing some of these other reforms, we’re going to have problems from a business standpoint as well, and I think they get that but again there’s this mistrust,” he said. “They want to see action not words,” the congressman said referring to border security.

As the push and pull over immigration policy plays out, farmers may get some relief as the federal government issues more visas for temporary agricultural workers, mainly from Mexico. The U.S. Labor Department has issued 20 percent more H-2A visas in 2017, compared to last year. Those visas are for seasonal agricultural work, such as harvesting berries, fruit or other crops.

But the visas require require farmers to demonstrate that no Americans will take the jobs they offer. In the meantime, the apple crop is ripening on the trees in Adams County. With harvesting about to begin in less than a month, orchard owners are not sure if enough workers will show up.

Kay Hollabaugh repeated what a top executive of a major food processor told her recently: “’If fruit goes, the Adams County economy falls and we’re out of business.’”
…

more

Blood, Passion Fuel Italian City’s Street Horse Race

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

The sounds of thundering hooves and a roaring crowd have filled Siena’s Piazza del Campo almost every year since the mid-1600s.

The passion that surrounds the bareback horse race between riders from competing city districts — the Palio di Siena — is palpable to the point of sometimes being violent.

The race, held twice a year in July and August, is contested by 10 riders, each representing one of the city’s 17 contrade, or parishes, racing around a makeshift earth track in the square.

The lure of local glory means that the rivalries between riders and fans is fierce.

Violence between rival supporters is not unknown but, for the winning jockey and his contradaioli, or parish members, a win is a cause for major celebration.

“When you win the Palio, inside the parish there’s an explosion of joy and madness which is something incredible, all the contradaioli standing in the street, singing and crying,” said Massimo Castagnini, an official with Onda parish.

With the three-lap race lasting around only 90 seconds, the rest of the day is filled with pomp and pageantry. It features an elaborate parade and ceremony, with members of each of the contrade in medieval garb, toting flags and coats of arms.

“The day of the Palio, there’s really a big tension, the time goes too slowly for us,” said Castagnini. “You just want to go in the square, stay with your people and thinking that will be the right time for your victory.”

If victory is beyond a rider’s grasp, the next best thing is preventing a rival from winning — and to that end, almost anything, including punching and kicking other riders, is permitted.

This year’s race, run on Wednesday afternoon, was won by Carlo Sanna of the Onda parish, who was carried on the shoulders of supporters after his victory.

The race began after a local aristocrat banned bullfighting in 1590. It was replaced with buffalo races, before the first race of Palio races was held in mid-1600s.

With riders frequently thrown from their horses, and horses regularly suffering serious injuries, animal rights groups have called for the race to be banned. Around 50 horses died in the event between 1970 and 2015, according to Italy’s Anti-Vivisection League, an animal rights group.

However, change appears unlikely anytime soon, as the race is tightly woven into the city’s cultural and social fabric.

“It’s not just the race,” said Castagnini. “When you are born in a contrada, your people will take you from baptism till the end of your days.”
…

more

Turkey Bones May Help Trace Fate of Ancient Cliff Dwellers

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Researchers say they have found a new clue into the mysterious exodus of ancient cliff-dwelling people from the Mesa Verde area of Colorado more than 700 years ago: DNA from the bones of domesticated turkeys.

The DNA shows the Mesa Verde people raised turkeys that had telltale similarities to turkeys kept by ancient people in the Rio Grande Valley of northern New Mexico — and that those birds became more common in New Mexico about the same time the Mesa Verde people were leaving their cliff dwellings, according to a paper published last month in the journal PLoS One.

That supports the hypothesis that when the cliff dwellers left the Mesa Verde region in the late 1200s, many migrated to northern New Mexico’s Rio Grande Valley, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) to the southeast, and that the Pueblo Indians who live there today are their descendants, the archaeologists wrote.

The cliff dwellers would have taken some turkeys with them, accounting for the increase in numbers in New Mexico, the authors said.

The debate continues

Researchers have long debated what became of the people sometimes called Ancestral Puebloans, who lived in the elaborate Mesa Verde cliff dwellings and other communities across the Four Corners region, where the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet.

Archaeologists believe the Ancestral Puebloans were a flourishing population of about 30,000 in 1200, but by 1280 they were gone, driven off by a devastating drought, social turbulence and warfare.

Because they left no written record, their paths are not known with certainty. Many archaeologists and present-day Pueblo Indians believe the Ancestral Puebloans moved to villages across New Mexico and Arizona, and that their descendants live there today.

Scott Ortman, a University of Colorado archaeologist and a co-author of the PLoS One paper, said the turkey DNA supports the explanation that many migrated to an area along the Rio Grande north of present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“The patterns that we found are consistent with several other studies and several other lines of evidence,” he said in an interview.

Evidence of migration

Jim Allison, an archaeologist at Brigham Young University who was not involved in the paper, agreed the findings mesh with other evidence of a southeastward migration.

But a weakness of the study is the number of DNA samples used, he said. Researchers examined DNA from nearly 270 sets of turkey remains — some from before 1280 and some from after that date. But only 11 sets of remains came from the Rio Grande before 1280.

“It would have been really nice to have 10 times as many,” Allison said, but they were not available.

 

Ortman acknowledged that the turkey DNA alone is not conclusive evidence of migration to the Rio Grande Valley.

The New Mexico turkeys could have come from someplace other than the Mesa Verde region, or turkey-herding communities could already have sprung up in New Mexico before the Ancestral Puebloans left their Mesa Verde communities, he said.

Evidence is thin

Some archaeologists argue the evidence for a migration to the Rio Grande Valley is thin. Even supporters, such as Allison, acknowledge that some evidence does not fit, including differences in pottery and architectural styles.

Tim Hovezak, an archaeologist at Mesa Verde National Park, said he is not convinced the Ancestral Puebloans moved to the Rio Grande, but he tries to keep an open mind.

“I think it’s still a mystery, and it’s a very compelling one,” he said.

Ortman said other evidence besides the turkey DNA points to the migration.

The Tewa language spoken by some northern New Mexico Pueblo Indians today includes vocabulary “that seems to harken back to the material culture of the Mesa Verde area,” he said.

The Tewa term for the roof of a church translates roughly to “a basket made out of timbers,” Ortman said. That better describes the roofs used on kivas — ceremonial rooms — in ancient Mesa Verde communities than it does the churches in New Mexico, he said.

Another line of evidence is similarities in the facial structures of the remains of ancient people from the Mesa Verde region and New Mexico, Ortman said.

Respect for Ancestral Puebloan remains

Examining human DNA from Ancestral Puebloan remains would provide a more definitive answer, Ortman said. But some contemporary Pueblo Indians object to doing that, and Ortman and others said they respect their wishes.

Theresa Pasqual, a member of the Acoma Pueblo in northwestern New Mexico and the pueblo’s former preservation director, said she knows of no pueblos that would consent to DNA testing on ancestral remains because of spiritual and cultural concerns.

Pasqual, who is studying archaeology at the University of New Mexico, said she was heartened by the turkey DNA study because it supports the oral traditions of Acoma and other present-day pueblos that point to ancestral ties to the Mesa Verde region.

Some Acoma families still raise domestic turkeys and hunt wild ones, but it would be difficult to trace that tradition to the Ancestral Puebloans, Pasqual said.

The Ancestral Puebloan sites are a key factor in what she called Acoma’s “migration narrative.”

“These places have been a part of our narrative and a part of our history and a part of our present-day life for as long as we can remember,” Pasqual said.

 
…

more

Wonder Women of Bodybuilding: Getting Pumped Up About Weightlifting

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

They’re muscular, fit, and in much better physical shape than most people. They’re competitive body builders, and many of them in the U.S. are women, something that was evident at a recent Washington-area competition called the OCB Presidential Cup. At that event, three-quarters of the competitors were women. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi hit the gym and a few places you might not expect in this report on what it takes to make it in the world of competitive bodybuilding.
…

more

From Elephants Stable to Air Museum: Strategic Bombers Restored

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

From the sky over occupied Europe to an elephants stable in India and to its final resting place in an air museum in England, this was the 100-year journey for one of the world’s first strategic bombers. And the last part was the most astonishing because the planes’ remains, found in India, were almost beyond recognition. VOA’s George Putic has the story.
…

more

Physicist Writes Science Books for Toddlers and Babies

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Reading to children is one of the best ways to prepare them for a lifetime of learning. It introduces babies to language and teaches youngsters about colors, shapes and letters. But an Australian quantum physicist is experimenting with something different. He’s writing science books for babies and toddlers. Faiza Elmasry has the story. Faith Lapidus narrates.
…

more

Internet Firms Flex Muscle to Exile White Supremacists

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley joined a swelling backlash against neo-Nazi groups in the United States on Wednesday as more technology companies removed white supremacists from their services in response to weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Social media networks Twitter and LinkedIn, music service Spotify and security firm CloudFlare were among the companies cutting off services to hate groups or removing material that they said spread hate.

Earlier in the week, Facebook, Alphabet and GoDaddy also took steps to block hate groups.

The wave of internet crackdowns against white nationalists and neo-Nazis reflected a rapidly changing mindset among Silicon Valley firms on how far they are willing to go to police hate speech.

Tech companies have taken down violent propaganda from Islamic State and other militant groups, in part in response to government pressure. But most internet companies have traditionally tried to steer clear of making judgments about content except in cases of illegal activity.

CloudFlare, which protects some 6 million websites from denial-of-service attacks and hacking, on Wednesday afternoon dropped coverage of the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer.

“I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the internet,” CloudFlare founder and Chief Executive Matthew Prince said in an email to employees.

CloudFlare is well-known for defending even the most distasteful websites, and services like it are essential to the functioning of websites.

Daily Stormer helped organize the weekend rally in Charlottesville where a 32-year-old woman was killed and 19 people were injured when a man plowed a car into a crowd protesting the white nationalist gathering.

Daily Stormer has been accessible only intermittently the past few days after domain providers GoDaddy and Google Domains, a unit of Alphabet, said they would not serve the website.

By Wednesday, Daily Stormer had moved to a Russia-based internet domain, with an address ending in .ru. Later in the day, though, the site was no longer accessible at that address.

Daily Stormer publisher Andrew Anglin said on a social network used by many of his supporters, Gab, that his site would be back soon.

“The CloudFlare betrayal adds another layer of super complexity. But we got this,” he said. He could not immediately be reached for further comment.

Prince, the CloudFlare chief executive, said in an interview that despite his decision he was conflicted, because it could become harder to resist pressure from governments to censor.

“You don’t have to play this game too many moves out to see how risky this is going to be,” Prince said. “‘What about this site? What about this site?'”

Only the biggest companies will be able to navigate the varying laws in different countries, he added. “We’ve lost a lot of the fight for a free and open internet.”

Twitter on Wednesday suspended accounts linked to Daily Stormer. The company said it would not discuss individual accounts, but at least three affiliated with the Daily Stormer led to pages saying “account suspended.”

The social network prohibits violent threats, harassment and hateful conduct and “will take action on accounts violating those policies,” the company said in a statement.

Larger rival Facebook, which unlike Twitter explicitly prohibits hate speech, has taken down several pages from Facebook and Instagram in recent days that it said were associated with hate speech or hate organizations. It also took down the event page that was used to promote and organize the “Unite the Right” rally.

“With the potential for more rallies, we’re watching the situation closely and will take down threats of physical harm,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote on Wednesday.

Facebook also said it had removed accounts belonging to Chris Cantwell, a web commentator who has described himself as a white nationalist and said on his site that he had attended the Charlottesville rally. Cantwell’s YouTube account also appeared to have been terminated.

Cantwell could not immediately be reached for comment.

LinkedIn, a unit of Microsoft, suspended a page devoted to Daily Stormer and another page belonging to a man associated with the site, Andrew Auernheimer. LinkedIn declined to comment. Reddit this week eliminated one of its discussion communities that supported the Unite the Right rally, saying that the company would ban users who incite violence.

Spotify, based in Sweden, said it was in the process of removing musical acts from its streaming service that had been flagged as racist “hate bands” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“Illegal content or material that favors hatred or incites violence against race, religion, sexuality or the like is not tolerated by us,” the company said in a statement, adding that record companies should also be held responsible.
…

more

Pakistan Railway Revival Clashes With Shanty Towns

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

After many false starts, plans to resurrect a railway in Pakistan’s teeming metropolis of Karachi are moving ahead with the help of Chinese cash. Not everyone is happy.

The Chinese-funded $2 billion project to revive Karachi Circular Railways (KRC), nearly two decades since it was shut down, has been touted as a way to ease pollution and chronic congestion in the port city of 20 million people.

It is also viewed with suspicion by Pakistanis who have built homes and businesses along the 43-km route connecting Karachi’s sprawling suburbs with the industrial and commercial areas of the megacity.

In April, a push to remove shanty towns near the rubbish-strewn railway track was met with violence as residents clashed with police and set fire to machinery used for demolishing homes.

Officials say nearly 5,000 houses and 7,650 other encroaching structures have been erected along the route of the old KRC, which closed in 1999 after 29 years of shunting passengers across the sweltering city.

Three-wheel auto-rickshaws and mini-buses, often cramped and with no air conditioning, have filled the transport gap on Karachi’s streets despite grumbling from commuters.

Work on the new KRC is scheduled to begin later this year, with financing from the $57 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, part of Beijing’s wider Belt and Road initiative to build trade routes from Asia to Europe and Africa. Beijing’s cash is building motorways and power plants to alleviate Pakistan’s energy shortages, but Karachiites hope it could also modernize their city at a time when traffic appears to be spiraling out of control.

“Let’s hope under CPEC, KCR is revived and people will get an alternate to miserably public transport,” said Manzoor Ahmed Razi, chairman of the Railway Workers Union.
…

more

Petrobras Argentina Sale Under Scrutiny in Brazil

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Brazilian prosecutors plan to investigate last year’s controversial sale of the Argentine subsidiary of Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, a lawyer representing some Petrobras shareholders said on Wednesday.

Petrobras, formally known as Petroleo Brasileiro SA , sold its 67.2 percent stake in Petrobras Argentina SA for $892 million to Pampa Energia SA, Argentina’s largest power company.

The sale has already drawn scrutiny from Brazil’s Congress and a federal audit court, and lawyer Felipe Caldeira said prosecutors were now looking into it as part of Brazil’s sweeping “Car Wash” anti-corruption investigation.

Caldeira, representing a group of minority Petrobras shareholders, told Reuters he spoke on Tuesday to prosecutors on a task force in Curitiba leading the Car Wash probe and gave them information on the sale.

“They are very interested and will investigate this,” said Caldeira, who filed a civil case in a Rio de Janeiro court in May alleging that the sale fetched a below-market price and was harmful to the interests of minority shareholders.

Federal prosecutors in Curitiba said the task force had not met with Caldeira but said that any relevant information about the case would be studied.

Petrobras bought the Argentine unit from energy conglomerate Perez Companc in 2002 for $1 billion, plus $2 billion in debt.

The sale 14 years later for much less sparked controversy in Brazil and led lawmakers to call on Petrobras and Pampa executives, and lawyer Caldeira, to testify before a committee hearing on Wednesday.

The controversy has grown since, Aldemir Bendine, chief executive officer of Petrobras at the time of the sale, was jailed last month on suspicion he received bribes from construction conglomerate Odebrecht in a political graft scandal that has led to the arrest of dozens of executives and politicians.

Pampa’s executive vice president and legal director Diego Salaverri told the committee the sale was transparent and competitive and his company made the best offer that was a “fair” price in a depressed market.

Oil prices had dropped drastically from $100 to $30 and a climate of uncertainty prevailed in Argentina, which had currency controls and a ban on remittances, he said.

Petrobras’ legal manager for acquisitions and divestment, Claudia Zacour, told the committee the sale of Petrobras Argentina was part of the Brazilian oil company’s divestment plan to reduce debt and focus on core activities.

The net positive result for Petrobras of owning and selling the Argentine unit was $1.6 billion when taking into account intercompany loans, the sale of some of its assets and the distribution of dividends, Zacour said.

Brazil’s federal audit court has said it was investigating the sale of Petrobras Argentina at the request of a senator but has not concluded its findings.

In response to Caldeira’s lawsuit, a federal judge in Rio de Janeiro sent Argentine authorities a request that the chairman of Pampa Energia, Marcos Marcelo Mindlin, testify in the case.

With a majority stake, Pampa SA, Mindlin’s holding company, continued its takeover of Petrobras Argentina in November by acquiring 11.85 percent held by the Argentine state pension system ANSES.

The transaction is being investigated by Argentine judge Claudio Bonadio, who ordered the search and seizure of documents from government offices in May in a case brought by center-left lawmaker Victoria Donda.

“The fund’s shares were sold very cheap, and we want to know why, because thousands of pensioners lost money,” Donda told Reuters in Brasilia, where she traveled to attend Wednesday’s hearing.
…

more

As Rural Sri Lanka Dries Out, Young Farmers Look for Job Options

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Scorched by a 10-month drought that has killed crops and reduced residents to buying trucked-in water, Adigama’s young people are voting with their feet.

At least 150 youth have left this agricultural village 170 kilometers northwest of Sri Lanka’s capital since the drought began, looking for jobs in the country’s cities, or overseas, village officials say.

Few are expected to come back, even when the rains end.

“If they get the lowest-paying job overseas, or in a garment factory, they will not return,” Sisira Kumara, the main government administrative officer in the village of 416 families, said as he walked through a dried and long-abandoned maize plot. “They will work at construction sites or as office helpers — anything they can get their hands on.”

W.M. Suranga, 23, who left his family’s withering rice paddy six months ago for Colombo, said working for low wages in the city is preferable to struggling with no rain at home.

“At least I am sure of a paycheck at the end of the month. This uncertainly of depending on the rains is too much of a risk,” he said.

As Sri Lanka struggles with its worst drought in 40 years, farmers in the hardest-hit areas are migrating for work — with some wondering whether farming remains a viable career as climate change brings more frequent extreme weather.

“There is no income here. All the crops have failed in the last four seasons,” Kumara said.

Little to harvest for a year

Paddy rice and vegetables are usually the main source of income in Adigama. But since the last big rains in July 2016, there has been little to no harvest.

Older villagers like Rajakaruna Amaradasa, 55, say that at their age they don’t have the option of looking outside the village for a new life.

After four decades of harvesting rice and herding cattle, he abandoned his paddy fields earlier this year when his harvest failed, and now spends his days moving his cattle around, looking for scarce water.

“It will take us another two to three harvests to recover our losses and pay off any debt. Even then it all depends on the rain,” Amaradasa said.

With average rains, Amaradasa said he used to make between 30,000 and 40,000 rupees a month ($200-$260). Now his income has fallen to a third of that, he said.

Sri Lanka’s drought, which by mid-August had affected 19 of the island’s 25 districts, has particularly devastated arid regions that lie outside the country’s wet western plains and mountains.

A joint report by the World Food Program and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, released in mid-June, classified the drought as worst in 40 years.

It predicted rice production this year in Sri Lanka would be almost 40 percent less than last year, and 35 percent lower than the five-year average. That amounts to the lowest harvest since 2004, it said.

Climate change

It also warned that Sri Lanka “is highly susceptible to climate change, and therefore the frequency of the weather hazards will likely increase as the earth warms.”

The impact on Sri Lanka’s economy is also likely to be substantial, with more than a quarter of the country’s labor force working in agriculture, a sector that contributes 8 percent of gross domestic product, the report said.

The situation is worst in villages like Adigama that rely almost entirely on rain to grow crops.

Suranga, the Adigama youth now working in Colombo, said he has no plans to return home. Instead he dreams of traveling to the Middle East as a construction worker.

“What is the guarantee there will be no more droughts or floods?” he asked. “When my father was my age, maybe the rains were much more predictable. Now only a fool will bet on the rains.”
…

more

Landmark UN Mercury Treaty Takes Effect

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

A landmark global treaty aimed at keeping millions safe from the horrors of mercury poisoning took effect Wednesday.

The 2013 Minamata Convention was named for the Japanese bay from which mercury-tainted fish left thousands of people with severe brain damage in 1956. Industrial wastewater had been dumped into the bay for more than 20 years.

So far, 128 countries have signed the treaty and 74 have ratified it.

“The Minamata Convention shows that our global work to protect our planet and its people can continue to bring nations together,” UN environmental chief Erik Solheim said Wednesday. “We did it for the ozone layer and now we’re doing it for mercury, just as we need to do it for climate change.”

Mercury was commonly used in batteries, fluorescent lights, felt production, thermometers and barometers. These uses have been phased out. The treaty requires governments to stop mercury mining, continue to cut mercury use in industry and slash emissions.

Mercury is an extremely poisonous metal that never breaks down. Contact with it attacks the nervous system and can cause brain damage, severe emotional problems, coma and even death. Children are especially at risk.

Mercury forms naturally in the environment, but is also man-made for industrial uses.

“There is no safe level of exposure to mercury nor are there cures for mercury poisoning,” the U.N. says.

Governments that signed the treaty must also meet tough conditions for storing and safely disposing mercury waste.
…

more

Catch Solar Eclipse Online or on TV

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Ronald Dantowitz has been looking forward to Monday’s solar eclipse for nearly 40 years.

An astronomer who specializes in solar imaging, he’s been photographing eclipses for more than three decades, and will be using 14 cameras to capture the August 21 event.

The cameras have solar filters to capture the eclipse in its partial phases, along with custom modifications that can photograph the corona and light wavelengths that are invisible to the human eye, allowing scientists to view and study the sun’s temperature and composition in a way only possible during a total eclipse, he said.

Dantowitz, who is based at Dexter Southfield School in Brookline, Massachusetts, is lending his expertise to NOVA’s Eclipse Over America, airing at 9 p.m. EDT Monday on PBS. That hourlong special, which will incorporate his images, is among extensive coverage planned on TV and online of the first solar eclipse to cross the United States in 99 years.

Still, witnessing totality — when the sun is completely obscured by the moon — is best done with the naked eye, not a camera, Dantowitz said, adding that the total eclipse is safe to view without special lenses. (NASA warns that, except for the totality period, looking directly at the sun is unsafe; the only safe way to look directly at an uneclipsed or partly eclipsed sun is through special solar filters, or “eclipse glasses.”)

“Enjoying totality by eye is more rewarding,” he said. “There is much to see: stars during the daytime, the million-degree solar corona, and seeing the sun blacked out during the daytime.

“I have been waiting almost 40 years for this eclipse, and although I will be operating 14 cameras during totality, I will certainly take a moment to gaze at the eclipse the same way people have done for thousands of years: with wonder.”

For those not in the 14 states in the eclipse’s “path of totality,” here’s a look at some of the viewing opportunities online and on TV:

 

— Eclipse of the Century: In partnership with Volvo, CNN plans two hours of livestreaming, 360-degree coverage accessible in virtual reality through Oculus and other VR headsets beginning at 1 p.m. EDT. Accompanying television coverage will include reporting from Oregon, Missouri, Tennessee and South Carolina.

 

— Eclipse Over America: The PBS science series NOVA is planning a quick turnaround on its eclipse documentary premiering Monday. Senior executive producer Paula S. Apsell said Eclipse Over America, which delves into why eclipses occur and what scientists can learn from them, will incorporate images of the event from across the country shot earlier that day with Dantowitz’s high-tech cameras.

 

— Great American Eclipse: The Science Channel will broadcast its live coverage from Madras, Oregon, from noon to 4 p.m. EDT, with commentary from educators and astronomers from the Lowell Observatory.

 

— The Great American Eclipse: David Muir will anchor ABC’s two hours of live coverage, with correspondents reporting from viewing parties across the country. NBC also plans live coverage, with Lester Holt hosting special reports at 1 and 2 p.m. EDT featuring correspondents reporting from Oregon, Illinois, Wyoming and South Carolina. Shepard Smith will break into typical broadcasting on Fox News Channel from noon to 4 p.m. EDT to update viewers on the eclipse and introduce footage from NASA and observatories around the country.

 

— Solar Eclipse: Through the Eyes of NASA: NASA will offer hours of coverage online and on NASA Television beginning at noon Eastern. It plans livestreaming of the eclipse beginning at 1 p.m. EDT with images from satellites, research aircraft, high-altitude balloons and specially modified telescopes.

 

— The Total Solar Eclipse: The Weather Channel is kicking off its live coverage at 6 a.m. EDT and continuing throughout the day with dispatches from seven locations along the “path of totality.”
…

more

Emma Stone Tops Forbes’ List of Highest-paid Actresses

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Fresh off winning her first Oscar, actress Emma Stone ousted Jennifer Lawrence on Wednesday to claim the top spot on Forbes’ 2017 list of the world’s highest-paid actresses.

Stone, 28, who won best actress for her role as a struggling actress in “La La Land,” made $26 million in pre-tax earnings, according to Forbes’ calculations over a 12-month period from June 2016 to June 2017.

She outpaced Jennifer Aniston, 48, who came in at No. 2 this year with earnings of $25.5 million, with residual income still coming in from the television sitcom “Friends” and endorsement deals with brands such as SmartWater and Emirates Airline.

Lawrence, 27, who topped the Forbes list for two consecutive years, dropped to No. 3 this year with earnings of $24 million, almost half of her prior year’s earnings of $46 million.

The actress, who has spoken out on equal pay for women in Hollywood, saw her earnings dip this year after the conclusion of the “Hunger Games” franchise, but continues to make money from movie deals and an endorsement deal with fashion brand Christian Dior.

Forbes compiles its annual celebrity earnings lists from box office and Nielsen data, as well as from interviews with industry insiders.

The top-10 list also includes Charlize Theron, Emma Watson and Melissa McCarthy. Forbes said no stars from Asia made the cut this year.

Forbes said the cumulative total earned by the world’s top ten highest-paid actresses — $172.5 million — was down 16 percent from the previous year.

Last year, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson topped Forbes’ list of highest-paid actors at $64.5 million, more than double the amount made by Stone this year. Forbes is expected to release its list of top-earning male actors later this week.

 

 
…

more

Study: Simple Therapy Eases Effects of Violence Against Women

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

An intervention based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) was found to be more effective than traditional therapy in helping women struggling with depression or anxiety after experiencing gender-based violence, research shows. It is estimated that more than a third of women around the world have been exposed to such violence, which includes rape, sexual assault and intimate partner violence.

The intervention, developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to help anyone facing adversity, had already been proven effective for Pakistanis struggling emotionally after exposure to terrorism.

Psychologist Richard Bryant at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, developed the program with colleagues there and others from WHO and the World Vision Institute. To test its effectiveness, 421 women in Nairobi, Kenya, were treated with either five sessions of the CBT program administered by a lay health care worker, or were referred to area health care centers for standard treatment administered by nurses.

The nurses had four more years of education than the lay workers, who had no previous experience with mental health care. A program simple enough for lay volunteers to administer is important in areas with little mental health infrastructure.

Reducing symptoms

The study, published Tuesday in PLOS Medicine, found that women who received the CBT treatment showed 20 percent fewer anxious and depressive symptoms five weeks after the end of treatment than the control group, and 45 percent fewer than they did before treatment. Following this work, WHO will begin distributing the treatment more broadly to areas with little mental health infrastructure.

“The vast majority of people in the world don’t get access to evidence-based care for mental health problems,” Bryant told VOA. “So there really is, from a global mental health perspective, an urgent need to have a different way of thinking about how we deliver care. And we can’t be relying on specialists.  We can’t be relying on lengthy sessions, lengthy treatment durations. We can’t be relying on systems that require long trainings to upskill people.”

CBT was developed in the 1970s. Unlike psychoanalysis, which aims to reveal the historical, root causes for a patient’s problems, cognitive behavioral therapists work to reveal thoughts and behaviors that currently contribute to a patient’s troubles.

Bryant said this particular intervention was designed to be as easy to administer as possible, and focuses on changing behavior. The WHO treatment coaches patients to be active, engage in social networks, and problem solve. Bryant said much of the cognitive side of CBT was left out, not only to make it easier to train practitioners, but also to make the intervention shorter. That allows treating more people with less money. Traveling to treatment can be expensive and dangerous in many places, and missing work is costly, so a treatment that requires fewer sessions is beneficial to patients.

Avoiding stigma

One challenge in helping people who have been exposed to gender-based violence is finding them. Rape and abuse carry a heavy stigma, and it can be dangerous for women to speak out.

Consequently, the program wasn’t advertised as being about gender-based violence. Researchers instead looked for women experiencing anxiety and depression. However, during treatment, they found that four out of five participants had experienced some form of gender-based violence — most often from an intimate partner.

“Really, I think what this tells us is that when you go to many of these settings where we know that gender-based violence and other forms of violence are so prevalent, you can actually assist these people — alleviate many of their mental health problems in an effective way — without actually creating the problems of identifying them and exacerbating the social stigma,” Bryant said.

Since the completion of the study in 2015, 1,400 volunteer counselors in Kenya have been trained in CBT, and 3,500 women have received the treatment.

Researchers in Australia have been leaders in CBT, Bryant said. In the early 2000s, researchers at Australian National University developed MoodGYM, free software that allows anyone with an internet connection to receive online CBT treatment at any time.

Numerous studies have shown that patients who complete internet-delivered CBT fare as well as those who receive treatment in person. However, those self-administering CBT without external encouragement are much less likely to complete a full course of treatment.
…

more

Reverence for Robots: Japanese Workers Treasure Automation

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Thousands upon thousands of cans are filled with beer, capped and washed, wrapped into six-packs, and boxed at dizzying speeds — 1,500 a minute, to be exact — on humming conveyor belts that zip and wind in a sprawling factory near Tokyo.

Nary a soul is in sight in this picture-perfect image of Japanese automation.

The machines do all the heavy lifting at this plant run by Asahi Breweries, Japan’s top brewer. The human job is to make sure the machines do the work right, and to check on the quality the sensors are monitoring.

“Basically, nothing goes wrong. The lines are up and running 96 percent,” said Shinichi Uno, a manager at the plant. “Although machines make things, human beings oversee the machines.” 

The debate over machines snatching jobs from people is muted in Japan, where birth rates have been sinking for decades, raising fears of a labor shortage. It would be hard to find a culture that celebrates robots more, evident in the popularity of companion robots for consumers, sold by the internet company SoftBank and Toyota Motor Corp, among others.

Japan, which forged a big push toward robotics starting in the 1990s, leads the world in robots per 10,000 workers in the automobile sector — 1,562, compared with 1,091 in the U.S. and 1,133 in Germany, according to a White House report submitted to Congress last year. Japan was also ahead in sectors outside automobiles at 219 robots per 10,000 workers, compared with 76 for the U.S. and 147 for Germany.

‘Lifetime employment’

One factor in Japan’s different take on automation is the “lifetime employment” system. Major Japanese companies generally retain workers, even if their abilities become outdated, and retrain them for other tasks, said Koichi Iwamoto, a senior fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry.

That system is starting to fray as Japan globalizes, but it’s still largely in use, Iwamoto said.

Although data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show digitalization reduces demand for mid-level routine tasks — such as running assembly lines — while boosting demand for low- and high-skilled jobs, that trend has been less pronounced in Japan than in the U.S.

The OECD data, which studied shifts from 2002 to 2014, showed employment trends remained almost unchanged for Japan.

That means companies in Japan weren’t resorting as aggressively as those in the U.S. to robots to replace humans. Clerical workers, for instance, were keeping their jobs, although their jobs could be done better, in theory, by computers.

That kind of resistance to adopting digital technology for services also is reflected in how Japanese society has so far opted to keep taxis instead of shifting to online ride hailing and shuttle services.

‘Human harmony with machines’

Still, automation has progressed in Japan to the extent the nation has now entered what Iwamoto called a “reflective stage,” in which “human harmony with machines” is being pursued, he said.

“Some tasks may be better performed by people, after all,” said Iwamoto.

Kiyoshi Sakai, who has worked at Asahi for 29 years, recalls how, in the past, can caps had to be placed into machines by hand, a repetitive task that was hard not just on the body, but also the mind.

And so he is grateful for automation’s helping hand. Machines at the plant have become more than 50 percent smaller over the years. They are faster and more precise than three decades ago.

Gone are the days things used to go wrong all the time and human intervention was needed to get machines running properly again. Every 10 to 15 minutes, people used to have to go check on the products; there were no sensors back then.

Glitches are so few these days there is barely any reason to work up a sweat, he added with a smile.

Like many workers in Japan, Sakai doesn’t seem worried about his job disappearing. As the need for plant workers nose-dived with the advance of automation, he was promoted to the general affairs section, a common administrative department at Japanese companies.

“I remember the work being so hard. But when I think back, and it was all about delivering great beer to everyone, it makes me so proud,” said Sakai, who drinks beer every day.

“I have no regrets. This is a stable job.”
…

more

Cruise Breaks Ankle in Stunt; ‘Mission’ Film Goes on Hiatus

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Tom Cruise broke his ankle while performing a stunt on the set of the upcoming Mission: Impossible 6, causing production on the film to go on hiatus while the actor recovers, Paramount Pictures said in a statement Wednesday.

Paramount, a unit of Viacom, said the action movie, from one of its biggest franchises, remains on schedule to open on July 27, 2018.

Cruise, 55, who is known for doing his own stunts, was seen in a video on celebrity news website TMZ trying to jump between the roofs of two high-rise buildings and landing hard against a wall during filming in London at the weekend. He was later seen limping off the set.

“During production on the latest Mission: Impossible film, Tom Cruise broke his ankle while performing a stunt. Production will go on hiatus while Tom makes a full recovery,” Paramount said. “Tom wants to thank you all for your concern and support and can’t wait to share the film with everyone next summer.”

Paramount did not say how long production would be delayed.

Hollywood trade paper Variety said filming could be halted anywhere from six weeks to three months while Cruise recovers.

Variety said the actor also injured his hip.

Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, in which Cruise reprised his role as agent Ethan Hunt, made more than $680 million at the worldwide box office in 2015, according to movie tracker BoxOfficeMojo.com

Cruise has carved out a career as one of Hollywood’s top-earning and longest-running action stars, much of it built on his reputation for doing his own stunts, including swinging around a Dubai skyscraper and hanging off a plane as it taxied down a runway and took off.

“I just don’t sleep, I just keep going,” he told Reuters in 2015 while promoting Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation.

Mission: Impossible 6 director Christopher McQuarrie told Britain’s Empire magazine in an interview posted Wednesday that the production schedule would be rearranged to shoot around Cruise while he recovers.

McQuarrie said that he did not know how long the immediate hiatus would be and that there were still seven or eight weeks left of filming.
…

more

Television Gets its Own Festival in New York’s Tribeca

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

The organizers of New York’s annual Tribeca Film Festival are launching a standalone television event to recognize the vast and varied content now available on broadcast, cable and streaming platforms.

Organizers said on Wednesday the inaugural three-day Tribeca TV Festival will take place on Sept. 22-24 in New York, and is aimed at bringing new shows and returning favorites to the public.

The lineup for the festival includes screenings and celebrity talks for the return of comedy Will & Grace, the upcoming season premieres of dramas Queen Sugar, Designated Survivor and Gotham, and the world premiere of Look But With Love, a virtual reality series about life in Pakistan.

More than 400 scripted TV shows are currently produced every year in the United States across traditional broadcast and cable networks and services such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu, leading to what has been dubbed a “golden age of television.”

“Ten years ago, we wouldn’t have needed a TV festival. Now, with the change in the TV landscape, both the quality and quantity of shows, it makes sense,” actor Robert De Niro, who co-founded the Tribeca Film Festival in 2002 to rejuvenate lower Manhattan, said in a statement.

De Niro is among a plethora of Oscar-winning stars, including Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and Michael Douglas who are making waves on the small screen.

De Niro is competing in September for his first Emmy Award for his role as disgraced financier Bernard Madoff in HBO television film The Wizard of Lies.
…

more

National Air and Space Museum Ready for Thousands to View Eclipse

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

For the first time in a century all 50 states will get to witness at least a partial eclipse. VOA’s Ardita Dunellari visited the National Air and Space Museum in Washington to learn what preparations are underway for viewing this spectacular display of nature.
…

more