Month: September 2017

Shark Fin Bans Might Not Help Sharks, Scientists Say

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

As lawmakers propose banning the sale of shark fins in the U.S., a pair of scientists is pushing back, saying the effort might actually harm attempts to conserve the marine predators.

Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey introduced a bill this year designed to prevent people from possessing or selling shark fins in America, much to the delight of conservation groups such as Oceana. But marine scientists David Shiffman and Robert Hueter said this approach could be wrongheaded.

Shiffman and Hueter authored a study that appears in the November issue of the journal Marine Policy, saying that the U.S. has long been a leader in shark fisheries management and that shutting down the U.S. fin trade entirely would remove a model for sustainability for the rest of the world.

The U.S. also is a minor contributor to the worldwide shark fin trade, and countries with less regulated fisheries would likely step in to fill the void if America left the business altogether, Shiffman said.

“Removing that from the marketplace removes a template of a well-managed fishery,” said Shiffman, a shark researcher with Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. “It’s much easier for us to say, here’s a way you can do this.”

Shark fins are most often used in a soup considered a delicacy in Asia. Shark fins that American fishermen harvest are often shipped to Asia for processing.

Environmentalists and animal advocates have long blamed shark fin soup for the decline of certain shark species. Their criticism of shark fin soup often includes arguments against “finning,” which is a practice that’s illegal in the United States and involves removing the fins from recently caught, often live sharks and discarding the animals.

Nearly a quarter of U.S. states have bans in place on the sale of fins, and sharks were afforded new protections with the Shark Conservation Act of 2010. But the country still has hundreds of shark fishermen, and they are allowed to have the shark’s fins removed for sale during processing on land.

Booker’s proposal would change that, making it illegal for any person to “possess, transport, offer for sale, sell, or purchase shark fins or products containing shark fins.” The bill was approved by a commerce and science committee in May, and a similar bill has been proposed in the House of Representatives.

More than 100 scientists have endorsed the bill, said Kristin Lynch, a spokeswoman for Booker.

“Unfortunately, current laws have proven inadequate at stopping the trade of fins from threatened and endangered sharks,” she said.

Marine conservation group Oceana is standing by Booker’s proposal, said Lora Snyder, a campaign director for the group. Shutting down the fin trade is akin to getting the U.S. out of the ivory business, she said.

A “near total” ban on commercial elephant ivory took hold in the U.S. last year, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

The U.S. fin trade needs to be shut down in part because violations of the “finning” ban have continued to take place, Snyder said. An investigation by Booker’s office earlier this year showed that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has investigated more than 500 incidents of alleged shark finning since 2010.

“Yes, we are better, but just because we are better doesn’t mean we are good,” Snyder said. “There are other threats facing sharks, but this is a very important step in the right direction.”

Some commercial fishing groups have vowed to fight efforts to shut down the fin trade. About a quarter of the value of a shark is in its fins, and the rest is in its meat, Shiffman and Hueter’s study said.

That means the fin ban is essentially an effort to shut down shark fishing altogether, said Jeff Oden, a Hatteras, North Carolina, fisherman who started fishing for sharks about 30 years ago.

“They want to stop it, just period,” he said. “Forget the fact that we fish sustainably in this country.”
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Iraqi Government Asks Foreign Countries to Stop Oil Trade With Kurdistan

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Iraq on Sunday urged foreign countries to stop importing crude directly from its autonomous Kurdistan region and to restrict oil trading to the central government.

The call, published in statement from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s office, came in retaliation for the Kurdistan Regional Government’s plan to hold a referendum on independence on Monday.

The central government’s statement seems to be directed primarily at Turkey, the transit country for all the crude produced in Kurdistan. The crude is taken by pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean coast for export.

Baghdad “asks the neighboring countries and the countries of the world to deal exclusively with the federal government of Iraq in regards to entry posts and oil,” the statement said.

The Iraqi government has always opposed independent sales of crude by the KRG, and tried on many occasions to block Kurdish oil shipments.

Long-standing disputes over land and oil resources are among the main reasons cited by the KRG to ask for independence.

Iraqi Kurdistan produces around 650,000 barrels per day of crude from its fields, including around 150,000 from the disputed areas of Kirkuk.

The region’s production volumes represent 15 percent of total Iraqi output and around 0.7 percent of global oil production. The KRG aspires to raise production to over 1 million barrels per day by the end of this decade.

Kurdish oil production has been dominated by mid-sized oil companies such as Genel, DNO, Gulf Keystone and Dana Gas. Major oil companies such as Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Rosneft also have projects in Kurdistan but they are mostly at an exploration stage.

However, Rosneft, Russia’s state oil major, has lent over $1 billion to the KRG guaranteed by oil sales and committed a total of $4 billion to various projects in Kurdistan.
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Swiss Voters Reject Raising Women’s Retirement Age

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Swiss voters rejected raising women’s retirement age to 65 in a referendum on Sunday on shoring up the wealthy nation’s pension system as a wave of Baby Boomers stops working.

Authorities pushing the first serious reform of the pension system in two decades had warned that old-age benefits were increasingly at risk as life expectancy rises and interest rates remain exceptionally low, cutting investment yields.

But it fell by a margin of 53-47 percent, sending the government back to the drawing board on the thorny social issue.

The package turned down under the Swiss system of direct democracy included making retirement between the ages of 62 and 70 more flexible and raising the standard value-added tax (VAT) rate from 2021 to help finance the stretched pension system.

It sought to secure the level of pensions through 2030 by cutting costs and raising additional revenue.

Minimum pay-out rates would have gradually fallen and workers’ contributions would rise, while public pensions for all new recipients would go up by 70 Swiss francs ($72.25) a month.

The retirement age for women would have gradually risen by a year to 65, the same as for men.

“That is no life,” complained one 49-year-old kiosk cashier, who identified herself only as Angie. “You go straight from work to the graveyard.”

Some critics had complained that the higher retirement age for women and higher VAT rates were unfair, while others opposed expanding public benefits and said the reforms only postponed for a decade rather than solved the system’s financial woes.

Opinion polls had shown the reforms just squeaking by, but support had been waning.

The standard VAT rate would have gone up by 0.3 point from 2021 to 8.3 percent — helping generate 2.1 billion francs a year for pensions by 2030 — but the rejection means the standard VAT rate will now fall to 7.7 percent next year as a levy earmarked for disability insurance ends.

A 2014 OECD survey found Switzerland, where a worker earns over $91,000 on average, spends a relatively low 6.6 percent of economic output on public pensions. Life expectancy at birth was 82.5 years. More than 18 percent of the population was older than 65.

($1 = 0.9690 Swiss francs)
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After German Vote, Europe Can Turn to Patching Euro’s Flaws

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Sunday’s national election in Germany will sound the starting gun for a renewed debate on fixing flaws in Europe’s shared currency to prevent future crises.

 

France’s new president Emmanuel Macron has made it clear he is willing to push for change to strengthen the euro and is expected to make proposals in a major speech Tuesday. He is pushing for, among other things, a finance minister for the eurozone to oversee a central fiscal pot of money that could even out recessions in individual members.

 

Even pro-euro policymakers concede their 19-nation currency union contains weaknesses that fed its debt crisis — and leave it exposed to new trouble. But action on fixes has slowed.

 

Macron’s ideas are not new but several of them have faced resistance from Germany, always allergic to the idea of being handed the bill for other members’ troubles. For example, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, have pushed back against the idea of EU-wide insurance on bank deposits meant to keep bank troubles from hitting government finances.

 

Now there are signs that after its own elections are out of the way, Germany might be more open to change or at a minimum speeding up steps — like the deposit insurance idea — that have stalled. Polls suggest Merkel will win a fourth term. What’s not clear is which party her center right Christian Democratic Union will form a coalition.

 

“In several ways, the coming 12-18 months represent an exceptional opportunity for European reform,” says Nicolas Veron, senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels and at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. Reasons for that, he said, include:

The two biggest EU countries, France and Germany, will now have new governments with fresh mandates from voters.
Europe’s banks are in better shape and the economy is growing, meaning leaders are not preoccupied with fighting a crisis.
 Anti-euro populists have been turned back at the polls this year in France and the Netherlands, giving pro-EU forces a fresh shot of confidence.
 Memories of the debt crisis that threatened to break up the eurozone at its peak in 2011-2012 may still be vivid enough to overcome complacency. 

Merkel has expressed cautious openness to tweaking the setup of the euro.

“I have made clear that I don’t have anything against the title of a European finance minister per se — we would just have to clear up, and we are not yet that far along in talks with France — what this finance minister could do,” she said in August.

 

“I could imagine an economy and finance minister … so that we achieve a higher degree of harmonization of competitiveness.”

 

The euro, currently worth about $1.20, was created in 1999, and 19 of the 28 EU members use it.

 

European officials concede that the debt crisis, which exploded when Greece revealed in October 2009 that it was bankrupt, exposed serious flaws. Once financial trouble hit, member countries such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal lacked typical crisis safety valves such as letting their national currency devalue, which can help a country’s exports and attract investment. Without their own currencies, this was no longer possible. The countries wound up needing bailouts from the other member countries led by Germany and from the International Monetary Fund.

 

Additionally, the cost of rescuing failing banks threatened to bankrupt entire eurozone governments. And the euro lacks a central fiscal budget that could even out recessions in member countries by investing more in economies in need.

 

German resistance will likely remain strong to the bolder ideas, such as a well-stocked central fiscal pot worth several percentage points of EU gross domestic product. Currently, the EU’s budget is 1 percent of GDP, spent on things like support for farmers and infrastructure to help development in the poorest members.

 

More modest, politically realistic steps could include:

Pushing ahead with EU-wide deposit insurance, to be implemented over a period of years.
Regulations limiting the widespread practice of European banks buying their own governments’ bonds. That would increase pressure on governments to shape up their economies and finances.
 A modest additional pot of money that could be used as targeted stimulus for eurozone countries that fall into serious recessions, with the condition that they implement economic reforms.

EU governments led by Germany, the bloc’s most influential member, have already taken some significant steps since the crisis days. They created a fund that can give bailout loans to states in need. They tightened banking oversight by moving it to the EU level at the European Central Bank, and they took steps to stick bank creditors — not taxpayers — with any losses in case of a rescue.

 

The new system proved its mettle in June, when the ECB pulled the plug on Spain’s troubled Banco Popular, the country’s sixth-largest bank, and then orchestrated a sale to Banco Santander for one euro. Shareholders and junior bondholders took the losses, while taxpayers and depositors were spared. It’s a step away from crisis times when the financial burden of rescuing banks drove Ireland and Spain to seek bailout help.

 

Carsten Brzeski, chief economist at ING Germany, says that reforms like a small central fund and deposit insurance are feasible.

 

“The opportunity in 2018 would be more a natural evolution of the process that has been ongoing now for the past couple of years, rather than being a revolution,” he said.
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US Launches Spy Satellite From California

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

A spy satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office has been launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket carrying the classified NROL-42 satellite lifted off at 10:49 p.m. PDT Saturday. All systems were going well when the launch webcast concluded about three minutes into the flight.

National Reconnaissance Office satellites gather intelligence information for U.S. national security and an array of other purposes including assessing impacts of natural disasters.

U.S. officials have not revealed what the spacecraft will be doing or what its orbit will be.

United Launch Alliance is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
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Uber Signals It’s Willing to Make Concessions to London

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

U.S. ride-hailing firm Uber is prepared to make concessions as it seeks to reverse a decision by London authorities not to renew its license in the city, which represents a potentially big blow for the fast-growing company, a newspaper reported.

The Sunday Times also quoted sources close to London’s transport body as saying the move was encouraging and suggested the possibility of talks.

“While we haven’t been asked to make any changes, we’d like to know what we can do,” Tom Elvidge, Uber’s general manager in London, told the newspaper. “But that requires a dialogue we sadly haven’t been able to have recently.”

A spokesman for Transport for London (TfL) declined to comment.

The Sunday Times said Uber’s concessions were likely to involve passenger safety and benefits for its drivers, possible limits on working hours to improve road safety and holiday pay.

TfL stunned the powerful U.S. start-up Friday when it deemed Uber unfit to run a taxi service for safety reasons and stripped it of its license from Sept. 30, although the company can continue to operate while it appeals.

The regulator cited failures to report serious criminal offenses, conduct sufficient background checks on drivers and other safety issues.

Uber responded by urging users in London to sign a petition that said the city authorities had “caved in to a small number of people who want to restrict consumer choice.” The move echoed Uber’s strategy in disputes with other cities.

By 2200 GMT Saturday, more than 600,000 people had signed although it was not clear how many of them were in London.

A spokesman for Uber said around 20,000 Uber drivers had emailed the city’s mayor directly to object to the decision.
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‘Screaming Eagle of Soul,’ Charles Bradley Dies at 68

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Charles Bradley, known as the “Screaming Eagle of Soul” for a powerful, raspy style that evoked one of his musical heroes, James Brown, died Saturday at age 68.

Bradley, who achieved success later in life with his 2011 debut album “No Time for Dreaming,” was diagnosed with stomach cancer in the fall of 2016 and underwent treatment, according to a statement from his publicist, Shazila Mohammed. He went out on tour earlier this year after receiving a clean bill of health, but the cancer returned recently, spreading to his liver, the statement said.

Recording on the Daptone label, Bradley was a fiery live performer. He followed up his first album with “Victim of Love” in 2013. His third album, “Changes,” was released last year.

Among his TV appearances was a stop last year on “CBS This Morning: Saturday,” which earned him an Emmy nomination.

Born in Gainesville, Florida, Bradley found himself living in New York at age 8. He left home as a teenager and lived as an itinerant until he settled in Brooklyn 20 years ago.

Bradley idolized Brown, working as a Brown impersonator known as Black Velvet before he was discovered by Gabriel Roth, a Daptone co-founder. He later became known for closing shows under his own name with hugs for his audiences.

“The world lost a ton of heart today,” Roth said in the statement. “Charles was somehow one of the meekest and strongest people I’ve ever known. His pain was a cry for universal love and humanity. His soulful moans and screams will echo forever on records and in the ears and hearts of those who were fortunate enough to share time with him.”

Roth said he told Bradley recently there’s solace to be found for fans knowing Bradley “will continue to inspire love and music in this world for generations to come.”

Bradley’s response? “I tried.”
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EPA Recovers Material From Houston-area Superfund Sites

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

The Environmental Protection Agency says it has recovered 517 containers of “unidentified, potentially hazardous material” from highly contaminated toxic waste sites in Texas that flooded last month during Hurricane Harvey.

The agency has not provided details about which Superfund sites the material came from, why the contaminants at issue have not been identified and whether there’s a threat to human health.

The one-sentence disclosure about the 517 containers was made Friday night deep within a media release from the Federal Emergency Management Agency summarizing the government’s response to the devastating storm.

A dozen sites

At least a dozen Superfund sites in and around Houston were flooded in the days after Harvey’s record-shattering rains stopped. Associated Press journalists surveyed seven of the flooded sites by boat, vehicle and on foot. The EPA said at the time that its personnel had been unable to reach the sites, though they surveyed the locations using aerial photos.

The Associated Press reported Monday that a government hotline also received calls about three spills at the U.S. Oil Recovery Superfund site, a former petroleum waste processing plant outside Houston contaminated with a dangerous brew of cancer-causing chemicals. Records obtained by the AP showed workers at the site reported spills of unknown materials in unknown amounts.

Local pollution control officials photographed three large tanks used to store potentially hazardous waste completely underwater Aug. 29. The EPA later said there was no evidence that nearby Vince Bayou had been impacted.

PRP Group, the company formed to clean up the U.S. Oil Recovery site, said it does not know how much material leaked from the tanks, soaking into the soil or flowing into the bayou. As part of the post-storm cleanup, workers have vacuumed up 63 truckloads of potentially contaminated storm water, totaling about 315,000 gallons.

It was not immediately clear whether those truckloads accounted for any of the 517 containers cited in the FEMA media release Friday. The EPA has not responded to questions from AP about activities at U.S. Oil Recovery for more than a week.

Waste pit underwater

About a dozen miles east, the San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund site is on and around a low-lying island that was the site of a paper mill in the 1960s, leaving behind dangerous levels of dioxins and other long-lasting toxins linked to birth defects and cancer. The site was covered with floodwaters when the AP surveyed it Sept. 1.

To prevent contaminated soil and sediments from being washed down river, about 16 acres of the site was covered in 2011 with an “armored cap” of fabric and rock. The cap was reportedly designed to last for up to 100 years, but it has required extensive repairs on at least six occasions in recent years, with large sections having become displaced or been washed away.

The EPA has not responded to repeated inquiries over the past two weeks about whether its assessment has determined whether the cap was similarly damaged during Harvey.

The companies responsible for cleaning up the site, Waste Management Inc. and International Paper, have said there were “a small number of areas where the current layer of armored cap is thinner than required.”

“There was no evidence of a release from any of these areas,” the companies said, adding that sediments there were sampled last week.

The EPA has not yet released those test results to the public.
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Banned Books Week Emphasizes Freedom to Read

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

This is banned books week in the United States, an annual event that points out censorship and emphasizes the freedom to read. In Washington, the public library system has hidden around the city hundreds of copies of six books that may be banned or challenged in some libraries and schools in the U.S. People who find these books can take them home for free. VOA’s Deborah Block brings us to a bookstore where customers are searching for the books they want to read.
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Amid Increased International Sanctions, North Korea Turns to Bitcoin for Cash

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

North Korea’s cash-strapped regime has long sought workarounds to the increasingly harsh international sanctions aimed at tightening the financial noose around its nuclear and missile programs.

 

Now, according to Recorded Future, an intelligence research firm backed by Google Venture, Pyongyang is making a foray into cyberspace, launching a bitcoin “mining” operation, which saw a dramatic spike in its activity in mid-May.

Although the bitcoin activity amounts to only a token amount of funds at this point, there is significant potential for it to become a major source of income for the regime, the company said.

Is North Korea’s pursuit of bitcoin, the best-known cryptocurrency used for purchasing goods and services online, something the United States as well as the international community should worry about?

WATCH: What is bitcoin?

VOA Korean spoke with Priscilla Moriuchi, a Recorded Future director. Formerly with the National Security Agency (NSA) as threat intelligence manager and senior expert on East Asia and Pacific regional and cyber issues, she discussed in detail her findings on North Korea’s cyberactivities. Her answers have been edited for clarity and length.

Could you describe how Recorded Future first detected the North Korean activity in bitcoin?

Priscilla Moriuchi: The bitcoin mining [from North Korea] started on May 17 and continued through the end of our data set, which was July 3. This was a critical moment in terms of bitcoin [mining activities] because before then, I haven’t seen any activity that we had insight into indicating that [the North Koreans] were interested in bitcoin.

Is there any substantive evidence for the North Korean bitcoin mining operation?

Moriuchi: [Mining] bitcoin is very computationally intensive. It requires a lot of energy and high capacity computers. It also requires a lot of internet bandwidth because it constantly communicates with other bitcoin nodes (a peer-to-peer network consisting of computers, which allows for transactions to be broadcast to other users worldwide) to validate the blockchain (the digital ledger technology that records all virtual money transactions) that they are putting together. So mining activity is pretty distinct in terms of volume, and the [internet] ports and protocols (IP address) that are used are also pretty distinct. It can give you a decent signature.

Who is running the North Korean bitcoin mining operations, and why do you think the country has finally begun mining bitcoin?

Moriuchi: The first [hypothesis] is that it could have been an activity conducted by the state, whether it be the military or the intelligence services, for the purposes of raising funds for the regime. The second hypothesis is that it was an individual user … but because of the bandwidth and energy that were required, it would have to be known or permitted by the state and the leadership.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen increasingly tough sanctions levied upon North Korea by the United States, other international partners and by the United Nations. Those sanctions have increasingly cut off North Korea’s access to the traditional financial system and [its] ability to generate funds for state operations. We believe that bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining or activity involving cryptocurrency is a way for North Korea to generate funds and get around some of the sanctions.

Do you think North Korea has come to a conclusion that using cryptocurrency to generate funds for the regime is safer than other illicit ways — for instance, smuggling drugs or counterfeiting money?

Moriuchi: [Mining bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency] is not illegal. There’s nothing about [using cryptocurrency] that puts North Korea in a worse spot in terms of sanctions or legal violations. So that’s one. Two, you can buy many things. You can exchange cryptocurrency for actual currency, but you can also buy physical goods with cryptocurrency. So it’s another way for them to purchase things they might need without using the financial system.

There were reports that North Korea might have launched cyberattacks against South Korean virtual currency exchanges. Do the North Koreans have such a capacity?

Moriuchi: Yes, definitely. When it comes to North Korean hacking activities, we broadly underestimate their capabilities because many people believe [it is] such an isolated country where most people don’t have access to the internet and ask how they can possibly have indigenous experts, how they can possibly train people well enough to be able to conduct some of these very sophisticated hacks.

But what we have come to know over time is that they are sophisticated actors. They do have in-depth understanding of internet networks and communications.

Do you believe North Korea meddled in the Sony hack in 2014?

Moriuchi: Yes, both the federal government like the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and NSA have both come out and said that North Korea was behind the Sony attack. I think most people who follow North Korea agree with the government assessments.

It seems that reasons differ for North Korea’s cyberattacks against South Korean virtual currency exchanges and for the Sony attack. Why is that so?

Moriuchi: North Korean cyberactivities really started about 2008 and 2009. [They were] mainly toward South Korean government, corporations and media, as well as some U.S. government entities, and they were intended to [cause] chaos and to disrupt South Korea and undermine systems there. After the Sony attack, [there seemed to be a] transition in most of the North Korean attacks that we in the private sector have been able to follow toward financial services, toward generating money and raising funds. I think we are in this new period in terms of North Korean cyberactivity.

How much profit does North Korea make from mining bitcoin?

Moriuchi: At current rates, let’s say [North Korea] earned about $100,000. So in terms of the amount of money that North Korea may need for their missile program, $100,000 is probably not very much. If you put that next to what experts estimate North Korea pulls in just through its other kinds of criminal operations, such as the drug trade, drug smuggling and counterfeiting of U.S. dollar bills, around $500 million to $1 billion a year, $100,000 is a drop in the bucket.

Given the token amount of money North Korea makes through the bitcoin mining activity, is it far-fetched to say the North is tapping this digital currency exchange in order to evade sanctions and earn income for the regime?

Moriuchi: Cryptocurrency, specifically bitcoin mining, is one other method for them to circumvent sanctions and to generate funds. It’s not the primary means of earning funds for the regime right now, but it’s certainly something that they could expand and that would be much more difficult for the international community to be able to track and limit.  

Why is it so hard to track the bitcoin activity?

Moriuchi: Bitcoin was designed to be anonymous, and it doesn’t keep track of identifiers, such as IPs and usernames, while mining, buying or spending bitcoin.

Additionally in the WannaCry attack, in early August three bitcoin wallets associated with WannaCry were emptied. What we saw were many steps taken by presumably the North Koreans to further obfuscate where the funding was going. So first off, they went through a bitcoin mixer, which is a service that essentially throws all the bitcoin into one pot and then out comes the amount you threw in but it’s not the same bitcoin that you put in. So it anonymizes your identity. After going through that, they then convert it to another cryptocurrency. So they went to great lengths to avoid even the slim chance that they could be attributed through their bitcoin transactions.

What do you think about the claim that the U.S. could take out North Korea’s missiles before launch through jamming or other cyber methods?

Moriuchi: There are two internets [in North Korea]. One, the global internet, and then the domestic intranet, the one that regular North Koreans, though a small number, actually have access. And then you have various other networks within the country — the government’s and the military’s. The connections between the global internet and anything inside North Korea are very few, based on the research that I did. So [even] if it was possible for the United States or whoever to attack a North Korean missile site or a launch using a cyberattack, it would be very difficult.

 

How did you become interested in analyzing North Korean internet activities?

Moriuchi: We have this very unique set of data … and we felt like we can give much more context to the whole debate about North Korea, especially about their cyberactivity. We did a big analysis over the past few months, and we came away with a number of conclusions based on North Korean leadership internet activity. The biggest one for us was that, based on the activity that we saw, the North Korean ruling elite and their leadership are much more active and engaged in the world, popular culture, international news, and with contemporary services, than most outsiders would have believed. They go to Facebook, they go to Instagram every day, they stream video and a lot of other things that many of us do. The 0.1 percent of [the North Korean population] who has access to the world internet does those same things.

Jenny Lee contributed to this report which originated on VOA Korean.
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Monaco Prince Commits to Study, Protect Endangered Monk Seals

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Royal families around the world, from Britain, to Jordan, to Nepal, have given their time, attention and resources to conservation efforts. Prince Albert II of Monaco has received numerous awards for his conservation work. This month he joined an Atlantic mission to save an endangered seal species. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Official Criticizes London’s Move to Take Uber’s License

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

A British government minister has criticized the London authorities for deciding to strip Uber of its taxi license, a major setback to the U.S. technology firm that has become a big player in the city’s transport system.

The British capital’s transport regulator deemed Uber unfit to run a tax service and said its license would not be renewed when it expires Sept. 30. London Mayor Sadiq Khan, a member of the opposition Labour Party, backed the move.

“At the flick of a pen Sadiq Khan is threatening to put 40,000 people out of work and leave 3.5 million users of Uber stranded,” Greg Hands, the government minister for London, wrote on Twitter late on Friday.

He said Uber had to address safety concerns and it was important that there was a level playing field across the private hire market.

In backing the decision to strip Uber of its license, Khan said: “All private-hire operators in London need to play by the rules. The safety and security of customers must be paramount.”

Uber has said it will contest the decision. Regulator Transport for London (TfL) said it would let Uber operate until the appeals process is exhausted, which could take months.

Uber has turned to customers to help defend itself in other battles around the world, and an online petition to support Uber in London gathered nearly 430,000 signatures by early Saturday.

In Friday’s announcement, TfL cited concerns about Uber’s approach to reporting serious criminal offenses, background checks on drivers and software that could be used to block regulators from gaining full access to the app.
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Ultraconservative Islam, King of Pop Meet in Egyptian Film

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

An Egyptian ultraconservative Muslim preacher hears on his car radio news of the death of Michael Jackson, the pop singer he idolized in his teens, and he becomes so distraught he crashes his car.

 

The news of the passing of the King of Pop is the start of a crisis of conscience for Sheikh Khalid Hani, the main character of the movie Sheikh Jackson, Egypt’s first feature film to focus on the religious movement known as Salafis, followers of one of the strictest interpretations of Islam.

 

It follows Sheikh Hani, a Salafi, as his love for Michael Jackson throws him onto a bumpy journey to discover his own identity, mirroring how Egypt’s conservative society is torn between its Islamic and Arab traditions and Western culture in an age when television, telecommunications and social media bring together people and cultures from all corners of the world.

Humanity and identity

 

“I no longer cry while I am praying. That means my faith is faltering,” Hani confides to a female psychiatrist in one scene. Crying while praying, he explains, reflects his fear of God.

 

The film goes beyond examining Salafis, says the director, Amr Salama. 

“It’s about humanity. … It tells you that one’s identity is not a single dimension or an unchangeable thing,” he told The Associated Press just days before Sheikh Jackson premiered in the Toronto Film Festival earlier this month. 

 

It’s a journey Salama has some experience in: He was a huge Jackson fan in his teens and then became Salafi during his university years, before moving away from the movement. 

 

What is Salafism?

Salafism is one of the most closed, uncompromising visions of Islam. Its doctrine is primarily built around what its followers believe is emulation of the actions the Prophet Muhammad. They are easily recognized by their chest-long beards and robes that reach to just below the knees. They shun music, film and dance and outside influences seen as decadent. Salafi women wear the all-covering niqab, including veils over their faces.

 

Followers view life as a little more than a transitional phase and are contemptuous of worldly pleasures. Immortality in heaven is their chief goal.

When Hani goes to the psychiatrist, whom he thought by her ambiguous name was a man, he asks her to put on a headscarf during their sessions. She refuses, and throughout their talk, he can’t look at her. When she asks him the last thing that made him feel alive, his response comes from Salafi doctrine: “I bought my shroud and wrote my will.” He occasionally sleeps under his bed, convinced that it is the closest thing to being inside a grave, thus a reminder of his mortality.

Connection to Jackson

But Jackson’s death revives in Hani the obsession with the singer he had in his teens, when he imitated the star’s look and dance moves. It earned him the nickname “Jackson,” but also the disapproval of his macho father.

 

“He is effeminate,” the father says of Jackson. But Hani’s mother whispers to him, “He is the world’s best singer. But keep that as our little secret.” When the mother dies young, Hani’s father turns into a serial womanizer and becomes violent, beating Hani for imitating his idol.

 

When the adult Hani discovers his own daughter, at age 6 or 7, watching videos of Beyonce, he tears out the Wifi and denounces “dancing to the devil’s tune.”

 

Delicate territory

The film, which is to be released in Egyptian cinemas later this month and which Egypt has put forward as a candidate for a best foreign film Oscar nomination, goes into delicate territory. 

 

Thousands of Islamists have been jailed under the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who was elected after leading the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 and who has faced a fierce militant insurgency. Depicting Islamists with even a hint of positivity can bring questions from authorities and security agencies.

 

Still, while some Salafis have been jailed in the crackdown, the government has tolerated parts of the movement, in part because some Salafi political parties lined up behind el-Sissi after the Brotherhood’s ouster. 

 

Salafism has been the fastest growing Islamist movement in Egypt for the past decade, and it covers a spectrum. Some Salafis are relatively engaged with other parts of society, often as successful businessmen; some separate themselves to avoid sinful influences; others denounce society outright as “kafir,” or non-believing. A militant fringe embraces jihad against “infidels” and tyrants. 

 

The film risks a backlash from the public, either by viewers who see as it as too sympathetic to Islamists or, from the other side, as mocking religious beliefs. 

 

“I have neither glorified nor dissed the Salafis,” Salama said. “They are just human beings like us.”

 

Touching moments

That extends to depictions of Salafi family that almost never show up in films. Hani’s wife understands his turmoil after Jackson’s death. At one point, Hani tells her he loves her because she loves God more than she loves him.

 

In a scene many parents could sympathize with, their young daughter watches her parents with disapproving bemusement as they drive her to school, joyously singing a religious hymn they heard on the day they met. Embarrassed, she asks her father to drop her off far from the school gate.

 

The movie builds Salama’s reputation as a director willing to take on some of Egypt’s thorniest issues. His 2014 Excuse My French dealt with the forms of subtle discrimination that Egypt’s minority Christians face, while the 2011 Asmaa portrayed the social stigma endured by those who are HIV positive.

 

Still, neither of the previous films was a box office hit, despite critical acclaim. Sheikh Jackson is unlikely to fare better in a country where comedies and action movies the only sure winners. 

 
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US to Award $59 Million for Opioid Addiction Treatment

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

The U.S. Justice Department has announced it is putting nearly $59 million toward fighting the epidemic of opioid drug addiction.

In a news release Friday, the department cited preliminary figures from the National Center for Health Statistics showing that drug overdose deaths in the United States rose 21 percent from 2015 to 2016. In 2016, a record high of around 65,000 people died from drug overdoses, driven by the opioid crisis.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the new figures Thursday, blaming opioid painkiller addiction for the rise.

The 2016 estimate “would be the highest drug death toll and the fastest increase in that death toll in American history,” Sessions said. “And every day this crisis continues to grow, as more than 5,000 Americans abuse painkillers for the first time [daily].”

Opioids such as heroin and the synthetic drug fentanyl were responsible for most of the fatal overdoses, killing more than 33,000 Americans — quadruple the number from 20 years ago.

The Justice Department said about $24 million in federal grants would be awarded to 50 cities, counties and public health departments for creation of “comprehensive diversion and alternatives to incarceration programs” for people impacted by the epidemic.

An additional $3.1 million will be awarded by the National Institute of Justice for research and evaluation on drugs and crime, prioritizing heroin and other opioids and synthetic drugs.

Also, $22 million is being awarded to 53 jurisdictions to support implementation of adult drug courts and veterans’ services.

And $9.5 million is going to juvenile and family treatment to “build effective family drug treatment courts and ensure current juvenile drug treatment courts follow established guidelines.”

In March, U.S. President Donald Trump named New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a former presidential candidate, to head the newly formed President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis.

Last month, the commission urged the administration to declare the opioid crisis a national emergency.

“With approximately 142 Americans dying every day, America is enduring a death toll equal to September 11th every three weeks,” the commission said in an interim report.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said that no declaration was necessary to combat the crisis, but White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later said Trump was taking the idea “absolutely seriously.”
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US Tech Companies Under Scrutiny in White House Russia Probe

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Inside a converted port terminal, thousands of tech entrepreneurs gathered this week to pitch their ideas at TechCrunch Disrupt, an annual event that focuses on emerging technologies.

But this is no ordinary time for the tech industry, which finds itself under increasing scrutiny from Washington over how Russia used social media to influence the U.S. elections.

This week, Facebook announced that it would give U.S. lawmakers access to ads linked to Russia that were placed on the site leading up to the 2016 presidential election.

“We are in a new world,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook live event on Thursday. “It is a new challenge for internet communities to deal with nation states attempting to subvert elections. But if that’s what we must do, we are committed to rising to the occasion.”

For the entrepreneurs at Disrupt, the tech industry’s troubles in Washington seemed a sideshow to the technology they are working on.

Spurred on by their own sense of idealism, the startup founders said technology is mostly a force for good, connecting the world and helping information flow freely.

But concerns over how Russia has apparently exploited these modern tools of communication for propaganda gave some entrepreneurs pause. Can they control how their technology is used? Should the government provide more oversight?

Technology is “allowing people to have more freedom to create and more freedom to communicate,” said Lachlan Phillips, whose company, AdRobot, helps businesses make video ads and distribute them on social media.

But he acknowledged that “a malevolent message might have been quiet in the past, and that can be quite loud now.”

The traditional Silicon Valley view has long been that technology is just a tool, and that any problem caused by a new innovation would be solved by more technology.

That’s what Amy Chen is betting on. She has created a site — 99 Voices — for users to rate businesses and political leaders. But she isn’t sure that people aren’t rigging the votes. Chen is hoping that making people register with a U.S. mobile phone number will help ensure who is on her site.

“I don’t know if technology can solve this issue,” she said. “It would be nice if each person gets one vote and one say, and that’s the platform [on which] you can judge what is public opinion.”

Dylan Sidoo’s company, Disappears.com, focuses on encrypted messaging. Like SnapChat, his firm offers a messaging app called Vanish.

For Sidoo, communications security is a social good, even if some might use his service for nefarious purposes.

“People say there are drawbacks about this kind of security, that different personnel can use it for different things, maybe not the most positive things in the world,” he said. “If the company has good intentions, initially, that’s fine from there.”

This week, Facebook also announced that it would add more humans to review its automated ad-buying process. Reports showed that some advertisers were able to target people who expressed anti-Jewish ideas.

Phillips, of AdRobot, said companies have a moral responsibility to know how their technology is used, something that computer algorithms, no matter how well designed, can’t get right on their own.

“My belief is that we are still a human society,” he said. “And we need that human layer to ensure that we are people talking to people.”

Deana Mitchell contributed to this report.
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Prince Harry in Toronto for Invictus Games

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Britain’s Prince Harry is in Toronto ahead of his Invictus Games for wounded veterans

The founder of the games left the Royal York hotel and arrived at a Toronto office building for a symposium about veteran issues on Friday.

 

Harry wore a blue blazer as he greeted and posed for photographs with athletes ahead of the symposium. His girlfriend Meghan Markle is a Toronto resident, but did not appear.

 

At least 550 competitors from 17 countries are slated to compete in 12 sports. U.S. first lady Melania Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will meet with Harry on Saturday.

 

The opening ceremony is Saturday night and will feature a performance by Sarah McLachlan.

 
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Study Finds Damaging Stereotypes About Boys, Girls Begin Early In Life

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Early in life, children get the message that boys are strong and capable and that girls are vulnerable and limited in what they can do. That’s the result of a new study, the first ever, that looks at adolescents and the messages they get from society and their parents. VOA’s Carol Pearson has more.
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Flight Attendant Helps Refugees by Selling Their Art

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Kayra Martinez took calligraphy paper and pens into refugee tents in Greece last year. “That was the first time I had actually seen the children really calm,” Martinez said. “And I realized that this is something that they really love to do.”

As a flight attendant for United Airlines, Martinez is often in Greece, where she was drawn to the refugee camps and began volunteering there in 2015.

Focusing her efforts on Nea Kavala in northern Greece, she is now the first point of contact for many families in need.

“It’s very, very actually challenging to be able to leave Greece, because you have urgent needs every day,” she said. “Every day you have a family writing to you.”

The paper and pens presented a whole new opportunity. Martinez put one of the pieces of art on Facebook and instantly received offers to purchase it. Since then, Martinez has provided canvases, watercolors, pencils, markers, calligraphy paper and sketchpads to adults and children in the refugee camps.

She collects their art and takes it to cities around the U.S. and Europe, selling each piece for $25 to $150. She then uses the money to help the refugees in the camps through her new organization, Love Without Borders — for Refugees.

Many of the pieces sold are from children as young as 3.

“I’m really focused on what the children want to draw, more than telling them what they need to draw, because they have a lot of feelings, a lot of trauma that hasn’t been worked out,” Martinez said. “So, we just let them take their time and draw whatever they would like.”

Therapy and independence

Many of the pictures displayed at a recent show in a small gallery in Washington were done in black and gray. The young artists drew their homes burning, their cities being bombed, their families crying.

“There was one that was kind of a row of buildings and a bomb above it — ‘Syria,’ ” said Niyati Shah, who attended the art show. “This is what this kid sees every day. You see it in the news, but then you see children’s depiction of their reality, and it’s certainly moving.”

Other pictures were colorful and bright, showcasing the hope and resilience of the refugee artists. Each piece had an accompanying note about the artist, telling his or her story

“It’s just also nice to be somewhere where you’re not just getting the tragic images, but it’s kind of a more positive way and constructive way to look at the conflict,” said attendee Julieta Jakubowicez. “Very humanizing.”

Martinez sold 122 pieces of art in three hours, about 60 percent of the collection she brought with her from Greece. She raised $17,503, most of which will go back to the refugees.

At least one of the refugees Martinez helps was an accomplished artist before being displaced by war.

“And now he’s having his first exhibition in Greece. We’re selling his art all over the U.S.,” Martinez said. “It got back his independence. He’s empowered, he’s motivated, and also he can now create a better environment for his family when he has his own money.”

In addition to providing cash to refugees, Martinez also teaches them how to make jewelry and baby clothes to sell so they don’t have to rely on fickle government and NGO services.

“They are really tired of having to ask for everything and then be disappointed at the end by not getting it,” Martinez said.

Filling in the aid gaps

Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, hundreds of thousands of refugees have arrived in Greece. Many continued to other countries in Europe, but many remain — something Greece was not prepared for.

Despite financial assistance from the European Union, Martinez said, help from large aid organizations was not getting to the refugees.  Volunteers and smaller organizations, including Love Without Borders — for Refugees, fill in the gap.

“We’re doing a lot of work that a lot of organizations cannot do, but we are very innovative. We have a lot of ideas, and we’re a little bit more independent to be able to make things happen a lot quicker,” Martinez said.

She volunteers with refugees and hosts art show fundraisers around the world, while still working as a flight attendant for United.

“I think basically I’ve given up my social life. I don’t go out with my friends anymore,” Martinez said. “I don’t; I can’t.”

She doesn’t sleep much, but she doesn’t regret anything.

“I’ve loved to learn languages, and I’ve loved to learn cultures by traveling around the world. So I get to do what I love to do in a different sort of way.”
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