Month: November 2017

With Deforestation Rising, Colombia Businesses Join Fight to End Destruction

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Colombia’s palm oil industry and big businesses have pledged to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains as the country battles to reverse the growing destruction of its tropical rainforests.

The commitment signed this week makes Colombia the first country in the world to launch its own chapter of the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020, a global effort by governments, companies and nongovernmental organizations.

The TFA 2020 Colombia Alliance aims to help businesses shift to deforestation-free supply chains by sharing best practices, monitoring forest clearance and training small farmers in sustainable agricultural methods.

It also aims to promote development of certified sustainable products from beef to palm oil for consumers to buy in local supermarkets.

Rainforests in Colombia, Latin America’s largest palm oil producer, are coming under increasing pressure, and deforestation is rampant.

Deforestation in the country’s Amazon region rose 23 percent and across the country rose by 44 percent from 2015 to 2016, said Vidar Helgesen, Norway’s environment minister.

Norway is one of four main donor countries, along with the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands, backing the TFA 2020, an initiative hosted by the World Economic Forum.

“These numbers have been higher than what we expected and that’s why it is important to intensify efforts,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Getting the private sector to commit to deforestation-free supply chains is a “critical part of the puzzle” to protect forests, he said.

First such cooperation

“This is the first time in Colombia we see the government and the private sector joining forces like this,” he said.

“My hope and belief is that this partnership will find ways of ensuring that it is not only an agreement on paper but something that will happen in practical terms.”

Protecting forests helps cut carbon emissions, a key driver of climate change. When forests are degraded or destroyed, the carbon stored in the trees is released into the atmosphere.

Colombia is home to a swath of rainforest roughly the size of Germany and England combined and has declared a goal of zero net deforestation by 2020 and halting the loss of all natural forest by 2030.

Its rainforests have been increasingly threatened since a 2016 peace deal to end its decades-long civil war opened up former conflict areas to business, agriculture and development, Helgesen said.

Trees also are being cleared for cattle ranching, illegal mining and growing coca — the raw ingredient for cocaine.

Signing up with the Alliance are about 25 palm oil producers and buyers, Colombia’s Federation of Oil Palm Growers and Alqueria S.A., its third-largest dairy company. Also signing up are retail giant Grupo Exito and international companies operating in Colombia such as consumer goods company Unilever.

“The launch of the TFA 2020 Colombia Alliance is important as a strengthening mechanism for joint action in Colombia to reach our deforestation goals,” said Mariana Villamizar, a spokeswoman for Grupo Exito.

Producers and buyers from the beef, dairy and timber sectors are expected to join the partnership soon.

Each company will set targets to achieve zero deforestation across their often complex supply chains, and the government and NGOs will help monitor deforestation.
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Foreign Visitors to US Fall Sharply From 2016

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

The number of international visitors to the United States through June fell sharply from last year, according to government data released Wednesday.

And the number of business travelers fell by much more than the drop in tourists, according to the monthly report from the Commerce Departments National Travel and Tourism Office.

Total foreign visitors fell four percent compared to the first six months of last year, with travelers from Mexico down more than nine percent and from Britain down six percent, but visits from Canada up nearly five percent.

Excluding Canada and Mexico, overseas visitors fell nearly six percent, but business travel dropped nearly nine percent compared to a 5.6 percent decline in tourists.

President Donald Trump in his first year in office repeatedly promised to build a wall on the border with Mexico, and has ordered bans on visitors from several Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and Africa.

Visits from the Middle East plunged 30 percent in the first half of the year, and from Africa dropped 27 percent. There also were double-digit declines in visitors from South and Central America, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe.

Among the top 20 countries with the most visitors, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil and India saw travelers fall well over 10 percent.

In contrast, arrivals from South Korea jumped 18 percent, while Ireland saw a 4.7 percent increase, Italy was up 4.2 percent, Spain 3.5 percent and France 1.5 percent, according to the monthly data.
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US Supreme Court Considers Limits on Government in Key Privacy Case

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

The U.S. Supreme Court signaled Wednesday it may be open to new limits on the government’s ability to track someone’s movements by accessing data on that person’s cellphone.

A case before the high court could result in a landmark decision in the ongoing debate over civil liberties protections in an era of rapid technological change.

At issue is whether law enforcement will be able to access cellphone data that can reveal a person’s whereabouts without having to first obtain a court-issued search warrant.

The case stems from the conviction of Timothy Carpenter for a series of robberies back in 2010 and 2011. Prosecutors were able to obtain cellphone records that indicated his location over a period of months, information that proved crucial to his conviction.

Get a warrant

On Wednesday, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union argued that law enforcement should be required to obtain a court-ordered search warrant before obtaining such information.

They also argued that allowing law enforcement to access the cellphone data without a warrant would violate the prohibition on unreasonable search and seizures contained in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“It is impossible to go about our daily lives without leaving a trail of digital breadcrumbs that reveal where we have been over time, what we have done, who we spent time with,” said ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler, who spoke to reporters outside the Supreme Court following oral arguments. “It is time for the court, we think, to update Fourth Amendment doctrine to provide reasonable protections today.”

Some of the justices also raised concerns about privacy in the digital age.

“Most Americans, I think, still want to avoid Big Brother,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who often sides with the liberal wing of the court, said.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who often sides with conservatives on the court, said the central question was whether the cellphone information should be accessible to the government “without a warrant.”

Privacy versus security

Justice Department lawyers defended the process of obtaining the data without a court warrant, arguing that even though the technology has changed, the need to rapidly obtain such information for law enforcement has not. The government also argued that privacy rights are not at issue because law enforcement agencies can obtain information from telecommunications companies that record transactions with their customers.

Justices Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy indicated they were open to the government’s position in the case.

Legal experts say whichever way the court eventually rules could have an enormous impact on privacy rights in the digital age.

“I don’t think that this is a world that anybody anticipated a couple of decades ago,” Stanford University law professor David Alan Sklansky said via Skype. “These new data capabilities are rapidly increasing the things that government can do for good and for evil. And figuring out how we allow the government to make full use of these new capabilities, without endangering political liberties and endangering the privacy that is necessary for us to have the kind of flourishing democratic social life we want, is a huge ongoing challenge.”

Sklansky added that the United States “has historically been a leader in thinking about privacy rights, particularly with regard to privacy from the government.”

And he predicted that other countries will be closely following the high court case as they wrestle with similar conflicts. “This is a global problem. Countries around the world are trying to figure out how to deal with it. I think that people in all democratic countries should care about how the United States winds up resolving this question,” he said.

Past rulings

Twice in recent years the Supreme Court has ruled in major cases related to privacy and technology and both times ruled against law enforcement.

The court ruled in 2012 that a warrant is required to place a GPS tracking device on a vehicle. And in 2014, the high court ruled that a warrant is required to search a cellphone seized during an arrest.

A decision in the current case, known as Carpenter v. U.S., is expected sometime before the end of June.
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Things You Might Not Know About Bubbly Bitcoin

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Bitcoin blasted past $11,000 to hit a record high for the sixth day in a row on Wednesday after gaining more than $1,000 in just 12 hours, stoking concerns that a rapidly swelling bubble could be set to burst in spectacular

fashion.

Here are some facts that you might not know about the largest and best-known cryptocurrency.

HOW MANY ARE THERE?

Bitcoin’s supply is limited to 21 million — a number that is expected to be reached around the year 2140. So far, around 16.7 million bitcoins have been released into the system, with 12.5 new ones released roughly every 10 minutes via a process called “mining,” in which a global network of computers competes to solve complex algorithms in reward for the new bitcoins.

ENERGY DRAIN

These mining computers require a vast amount of energy to run. A recent estimate by tech news site Motherboard put the energy cost of a single bitcoin transaction at 215 kilowatt-hours, assuming that there are around 300,000 bitcoin transactions per day. That’s almost enough energy as the average American household consumes in a whole week.

BITS OF BITCOIN

Bitcoin’s smallest unit is a Satoshi, named after the elusive creator of the cryptocurrency, Satoshi Nakamoto. One Satoshi is one hundred-millionth of a bitcoin, making it worth around $0.0001 at current exchange rates.

BITCOIN BILLIONAIRES

Bitcoin has performed better than every central-bank-issued currency in every year since 2011 except for 2014, when it performed worse than any traditional currency. So far in 2017, it is up around 1000 percent. If you had bought $1,000 of bitcoin at the start of 2013 and had never sold any of it, you

would now be sitting on $80 million. Many people consider bitcoin to be more of a speculative instrument than a currency, because of its volatility, increasingly high transaction fees, and the fact that relatively few merchants accept it.

EXCHANGE HEISTS

More than 980,000 bitcoins have been stolen from exchanges, either by hackers or insiders. That’s a total of more than $10 billion at current exchange rates. Few have been recovered.

MYSTERY CREATOR

Despite many attempts to find the creator of bitcoin, and a number of claims, we still do not know who Satoshi Nakamoto is, or was. Australian computer scientist and entrepreneur Craig Wright convinced some prominent members of the bitcoin community that he was Nakamoto in May 2016, but he then refused to provide the evidence that most of the community said was necessary. It is not clear whether Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym, was a name used by a group of developers or by one individual. Nor is it clear that Nakamoto is still alive — the late computer scientist Hal Finney’s name is sometimes put forward. Developer Nick Szabo has denied claims that he is Nakamoto, as has tech entrepreneur Elon Musk more recently.

INFLATED CHINESE TRADING

Until earlier this year, it was thought that Chinese exchanges accounted for around 90 percent of trading volume. But it has become clear that some exchanges inflated their volumes through so-called wash trades, repeatedly trading nominal amounts of bitcoin back and forth between accounts. Since the Chinese authorities imposed transaction fees, Chinese trading volumes have fallen sharply, and now represent less than 20 percent, according to data from website Bitcoinity.

“MARKET CAP”

The total value of all bitcoins released into the system so far has now reached as high as $190 billion. That makes its total value — sometimes dubbed its “market cap” — greater than that of Disney, and bigger than the market cap of BlackRock and Goldman Sachs combined.

CRYPTO-RIVALS

Bitcoin is far from the only cryptocurrency. There are now well over 1,000 rivals, according to trade website Coinmarketcap. 

“SHORTING”

It is already possible to short bitcoin on a number of retail platforms and exchanges, via contracts for difference (CFDs), leveraged-up margin trading or by borrowing bitcoin from exchanges without leverage. But a number of big financial institutions — including CME Group, CBOE and Nasdaq — have

recently announced that they will offer bitcoin futures, which will open up the possibility of shorting the cryptocurrency to the mainstream professional investment universe.

Reporting by Jemima Kelly.
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DEA Targets Opioid Abuse With New Appalachian Field Office

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency is targeting opioid abuse in Appalachia by establishing a new field office in Kentucky to oversee a region ravaged by overdose deaths.

Acting DEA Administrator Robert Patterson says the new Louisville field office will have a special agent in charge to oversee investigations in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. The agency says the new office will enhance efforts in the Appalachian mountain region and streamline drug trafficking investigations under a single office. D. Christopher Evans, an associate agent in charge in the DEA’s Detroit field office, will lead the new Louisville office.

Overdose deaths were 65 percent higher among residents in Appalachia than in the rest of the country in 2015, a recent Appalachian Regional Commission study found.
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US Adopts Recovery Plan for Mexican Grey Wolves

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

After decades of legal challenges and political battles that have pitted states against the federal government, U.S. wildlife managers on Wednesday finally adopted a plan to guide the recovery of a wolf that once roamed parts of the American Southwest and northern Mexico.

 

The plan sets a goal of having an average of 320 Mexican gray wolves in the wild over an eight-year period before the predator can shed its status as an endangered species. In each of the last three years, the population would have to exceed the average to ensure the species doesn’t backslide.

 

Officials estimate recovery could take another two decades and cost nearly $180 million.

 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considered tens of thousands of public comments – from state lawmakers and business groups to independent scientists and environmentalists – as it worked to meet a court-ordered deadline to craft the recovery plan. It was a long time coming as the original guidance for restoring the wolf was adopted in 1982.

 

“This plan really provides us a roadmap for where we need to go to get this species recovered and delisted and get its management turned back over to the states and tribes,” Sherry Barrett, the Mexican wolf recovery coordinator, told The Associated Press in an interview.

 

Barrett said state wildlife officials reviewed the scientific data and the models used to calculate the best way forward for the agency as it works to bolster genetic diversity and continue building the wild population.

 

There are now more of the wolves roaming the Southwest than at any time since the federal government began trying to reintroduce the animals in 1998. The most recent annual survey shows at least 113 wolves spread between southwestern New Mexico and southeast Arizona.

There are about 31 wolves in the wild in Mexico, officials said.

 

Under the recovery plan, those numbers would be expected to grow to 145 in the U.S. and 100 in Mexico over the next five years.

 

Barrett said targeted releases of captive-bred wolves and translocations are necessary to make the program work.

 

In an effort to avoid future skirmishes with states, the plan calls for coordination with wildlife officials in New Mexico and Arizona when it comes to the timing, location and circumstances of the releases.

 

Environmentalists are voicing concerns, suggesting there needs to be more than 700 wolves in the wild if the population is to withstand illegal shootings, genetic issues and other challenges.

 

They have pushed for years for more captive wolves to be released, but ranchers and elected leaders in rural communities have pressed back because the predators sometimes attack domestic livestock and wild game.

 

Last year, the U.S. Interior Department’s internal watchdog said the Fish and Wildlife Service had not fulfilled its obligation to remove Mexican gray wolves that preyed on pets and cattle.

 

Barrett said with the new plan and other rules that give the agency flexibility in managing problem wolves, there is optimism among officials that progress can be made.

 

“I know that with most things having to do with wolves, there’s going to be a lot of strong opinions on both sides,” she said. “But to us, it is a big step forward for us to have something in place to start working toward and working with the public to achieve.”
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US Economic Growth Speeds Up Slightly

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

The world’s largest economy shook off the impact of several hurricanes and grew a bit faster than first thought in July, August, and September.

On Wednesday, U.S. government experts said the economy expanded at a 3.3 percent annual rate in the third quarter, which is three-tenths of a percent faster than their first estimate. Officials routinely update economic statistics as more complete data become available.

The improved performance of the gross domestic product or GDP was partly the result of a healthy U.S. job market, which supports the consumer spending that drives most economic activity. Growth was also helped by a fall in the value of the U.S. dollar and a pick up in global growth both of which boost U.S. exports.

The outgoing head of the U.S. central bank, Janet Yellen, told a key congressional committee Wednesday that the outlook is for continued growth and a strengthening job market.

She also made it clear that the Federal Reserve is likely to raise its key interest rate slightly in mid-December.

The Fed slashed interest rates to record lows near zero during the recession in a bid to boost economic growth by making it cheaper to borrow money to build factories and make other investments that could boost employment. As the economy recovered, officials have gradually boosted rates, but they remain below historic averages.

Keeping rates too low for too long risks sparking a high rate of inflation that could harm the economy. But inflation remains stubbornly below the two percent rate that many economists say is best for U.S. economic growth.

Coping with inflation, growth, unemployment, and congress will probably soon be the job of Jerome Powell, the person President Donald Trump picked to replace Yellen when her term ends early next year. In Tuesday’s confirmation hearing, Powell expressed views on interest rates very similar to Yellen’s.
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Ice Baths, Tape and M&Ms: Secrets of the Rockettes Revealed

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

One of the biggest draws in New York this time of year is the “Christmas Spectacular” featuring the iconic Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. Everyone knows about their high kicks but do you know how many calories each burns? What do they snack on? What’s the best place to be in their famous kick line? Two veterans — Bailey Callahan of Melbourne, Florida, and Alissa LaVergne of Houston — reveal all the backstage secrets.

By the numbers

There are 80 Rockettes, split into two teams of 36 dancers and four standbys. The 36 women can fit shoulder-to-shoulder along the 66-foot (20-meter) stage. They perform eight dance numbers per show, up to four shows daily, 200 shows a season. The show produces 350 laundry loads weekly.

Height and calories

Rockettes must stand between 5-foot-6 and 5-foot-10½ (roughly 1.7 to 1.8 meters) and be proficient at tap, jazz and ballet. Candidates must be ready to do 300 eye-high kicks a show. One Rockette used a fitness tracker and discovered that she burned 1,000 calories every show. “When we do four shows a day, that’s a lot of pizza that we get to eat,” says Callahan.

Where are they from?

Rockettes this year come from 27 states, plus Canada and Australia. New Jersey sent the most dancers, 12. Ohio is next with six. Pennsylvania, Florida and California each have five; Michigan, New York and Arizona, four each; Maryland, three; Georgia, North Carolina, Indiana, Connecticut, Texas, Nebraska and Virginia, two each. Louisiana, Rhode Island, Kentucky, Washington, Kansas, Wisconsin, Alabama, North Carolina, Utah, Illinois and New Hampshire, one each. Two come from Australia, five from Canada.

How do they look the same height if they’re not?

Heels? Optical illusion? “The way we line up is we put the taller girls in the center and gradually go down to the shorter girls on the end,” says LaVergne. “There’s a bit of an illusion but it’s actually really simple.” The costumes are made proportionately, helping the illusion.

During high kicks, how tightly do they hold each other?

Prepare to be astonished: “We actually don’t touch each other,” says LaVergne. The dancers just lightly brush the women beside them with outstretched arms. They call it “feeling the fabric.” That ensures they’re in line without pushing or leaning. “It just looks like you’re actually holding onto your neighbor but we don’t,” says LaVergne.

Best place to be on the line?

Doesn’t matter. “Whether you’re on the end or the center, you’re still kicking on your own,” says LaVergne. Each dancer relies on back muscles, core strength and hamstring and quad power, not pushing off another dancer. “Whether you’re standing on zero or 36, you’re going through the exact same experience,” says Callahan.

Quickest costume change?

Between the “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers” and “New York at Christmas,” the Rockettes have just 78 seconds to change outfits. That means taking off socks, shoes, pants, jackets, gloves, cheeks and hats, and then putting on dresses, shoes, jackets, earnings, gloves and new hats. Wait, what’s that about “cheeks”? The Rockettes wear red cloth cheeks for “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers” and “Rag Dolls” for rosy complexions.

What do Rockettes eat?

Everything. Catered foods include proteins, veggies, salads, carbs, desserts. Bottles of sports drink Powerade are everywhere. In her dressing room, LaVergne has chips, popcorn, yogurt and apples. Callahan’s go-to snack is a peanut butter and banana sandwich. She also has a stash of M&Ms.

Before the curtain rises…

They’re onstage in reindeer costumes, the overture is playing, and they’re hidden by a curtain. Some stretch, some pray, some test their antler lights. Others do a clap routine, high fives or dance with a friend. Callahan does three splits, every time.

“Because it’s so perfect and precise onstage once the curtain opens,” says LaVergne, “to see everyone doing something different is hysterical.”

Staying healthy

Vitamins, water, rest, good nutrition, CleanWell hand sanitizer. LaVergne likes Emergen-C packets. Callahan is partial to electrolyte tablets. Year-round, Callahan likes yoga, Pilates and barre classes. LaVergne leans toward boot camp, boxing and interval training.

Cool down like a Rockette

Many dancers take an ice bath before heading home. Callahan sits in a tub in 45-degree F (7.2 C) water to reduce inflammation.

Is that tapping real or recorded?

Oh, it’s real. For the tap-dancing numbers “Rag Dolls” and “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” wireless microphones are hidden in their tap shoes’ arches.

Most embarrassing moment

For Callahan, it was a 2013 fall onstage, opening night in “The Twelve Days of Christmas” tap number: “It felt like an eternity on the floor but was probably two seconds. You had to keep smiling, keep going, pretend like nothing ever happened.” LaVergne recalled the time a fellow Rockette’s shoe came off during a high kick and went sailing — luckily away from the audience. She kept going. Santa picked up the shoe like nothing happened.

Is there any hazing for newcomers?

Are you crazy? This show demands absolute precision and teamwork. There’s no room for veterans to make freshmen feel lousy. They might offer advice, but no bullying.

“We’re all in it together,” says LaVergne. “If you don’t have that camaraderie and we don’t have that bond, it will show onstage.”

 
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Trump Touting Tax Overhaul in Missouri Speech

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

U.S. President Donald Trump is heading Wednesday to Missouri to tout his tax overhaul, trying to convince working class Americans that their taxes would go down and more jobs would be created if Congress adopts the plan.

Trump is set to speak to about 1,000 people in St. Charles, a suburb of the big midwestern city of St. Louis. His remarks come a day after the Senate Finance Committee advanced the tax legislation, sending it to the full Senate for consideration later this week.

“Our focus is on helping the folks who work in the mail room, in the machine shops of America, the plumbers and the police officers, the store clerks and secretaries,” Trump says, according to advance excerpts of his speech. “All of the people who give their best each and every day to take care of their families and the people that they love. It is not enough for the middle class to keep getting by, we want them to start getting ahead.”

In a Twitter remark before heading to Missouri, Trump boasted, “Economy growing!”

According to the newest government estimate, the U.S. economy, the world’s largest, advanced at a brisk 3.3 percent pace in the July-to-September period. Trump noted that the Council of Economic Advisers said that absent the effect of several devastating hurricanes in the U.S. the growth would have been 3.9 percent.

“Stock market at a new high, unemployment at a low,” Trump said. “We are winning and tax cuts will shift our economy into high gear!”

The Senate Finance panel cleared the legislation on a party line 12-11 vote, with all Republicans supporting it and all Democrats opposed. But its fate in the full Senate is still uncertain, with a half dozen Republicans voicing sometimes conflicting objections to various provisions that could derail the legislation if their concerns cannot be resolved and they ultimately vote against the measure.

Republicans, with a narrow 52-48 edge in the Senate, can only afford to lose two dissenting votes, with Vice President Mike Pence poised to break a 50-50 tie in favor of what would be the country’s biggest set of tax changes in three decades. No Democratic lawmaker has announced support for the legislation.

The House of Representatives has already approved its version of the tax overhaul, but both chambers would have to pass the same tax provisions before Trump could sign them into law.

Both the Senate and House versions would cut the country’s corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent, but differ in rates for individual taxpayers.

Over the next decade, the proposals would add at least $1.4 trillion to the U.S. national debt of $20 trillion, a fact that worries some conservative Republican lawmakers, while Democrats have attacked the legislation as heavily favoring corporations and the wealthiest taxpayers at the expense of individuals who earn far less.

Senior administration officials who briefed reporters ahead of the Missouri speech said Trump once again would single out Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, a top Republican target in her re-election contest a year from now, for her lack of support for the tax legislation.

In August, in another visit to Missouri, Trump said, “We must lower our taxes, and your senator, Claire McCaskill, she must do this for you. And if she doesn’t do it for you, you have got to vote her out of office.”

 

 
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Man Who Posed as Justin Bieber to Entice Girls Sentenced

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

A Connecticut man who pretended to be pop stars like Justin Bieber and Harry Styles to entice young girls into performing sexual acts during online video chats has been sentenced to 17 years in prison.

Federal prosecutors say 50-year-old John Eastman, of Waterbury, was also sentenced Tuesday to a lifetime of probation.

Prosecutors say Eastman contacted girls through online video chatting services in 2012 using screen names such as justin.bieber727 and Harry.Styles888 and enticed them into sexually explicit conduct, which he then recorded and saved on his computer. He also used previously recorded videos the singers had uploaded on YouTube to further deceive the girls.

He was arrested in May 2013 and pleaded guilty in March.

Eastman has 31 past convictions, including for sex-related crimes.
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Price of Bitcoin Over $10,000 as Rally Gains Pace

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

The price of bitcoin, the most widely used virtual currency, rose above $10,000 on Wednesday for the first time, breaking a symbolic threshold in what has been a vertiginous ascent this year.

The cost of buying one bitcoin as measured by the website coindesk.com was at $10,673 by morning trading in Europe – up from about $1,000 at the start of the year.

Virtual currencies have been the subject of much debate this year, with the CEO of JPMorgan Chase calling bitcoin a “fraud” but other executives saying it should not be dismissed.

Bitcoin was created about a decade ago as an alternative to government-issued currencies. It and other virtual currencies were initially used primarily as a method of payment, particularly to buy illegal goods and services online. In recent months, they have become a hot investment among speculators.

In a move that gave further credibility to bitcoin, the U.S. exchange operator CME Group said in October that it plans to open a futures market for the currency before the end of the year, if it can get approval from regulators.

Daniele Bianchi, an assistant professor of finance at the Warwick Business School in England, said that the price increases are due to rising demand as trading becomes more professional and open to the general public. He believes so-called cryptocurrencies are “here to stay” and that that awareness among investors is making it more than just a method of payment online, but an investment in itself.

“The increasing demand pressure from investors and speculators makes the case for an even further increase in bitcoin prices in the near future,” he said.
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Microsoft Plans to Rebuild its Headquarters

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Microsoft says it’s overhauling its longtime headquarters with an 18-building construction project that will make room for another 8,000 workers.

The announcement came ahead of the company’s annual shareholders meeting Wednesday.

Microsoft’s decision to expand on the footprint of its campus in Redmond, Washington, its home since 1986, is in contrast to the highly-publicized office expansion plans of Seattle-based Amazon.

Amazon has been looking at cities across North America for a spot to build a second headquarters that will be as big at its Seattle hub.

Microsoft Corp.’s current Redmond campus employs about 47,000 people in 125 buildings. The company says its project will include renovations and new construction and will take 5 to 7 years.

It’s also promising $150 million in transportation improvements and other public amenities.
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NBC News Fires Lauer Over Inappropriate Sexual Behavior

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

The U.S. television network NBC has fired its leading morning news anchor, Matt Lauer, after receiving a complaint against him describing sexual misconduct.

“On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer. It represented, after serious review, a clear violation of our company’s standards,” NBC News chairman Andy Lack said in a statement.

“As a result, we’ve decided to terminate his employment.”

Lack added that although it was the first such complaint filed against Lauer, host of the daily morning Today show in the more than 20 years Lauer worked at the network, the company had reason to believe that it was not an isolated incident.

“We are deeply saddened by this turn of events. But we will face it together as a news organization – and do it in as transparent a manner as we can,” Lack said. Lack is the former CEO of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Voice of America.

Lauer is the latest prominent U.S. personality to face allegations of long-running sexual abuse. The list includes President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton when he was in office in the 1990s, actor Bill Cosby, film producer Harvey Weinstein, journalists and corporate executives. About 16 women have accused Trump of sexual harassment or worse. He has labeled the accusations “fake news” in both online tweets and other statements.

On Wednesday, President Trump commented on Lauer’s firing, saying in a tweet “Wow, Matt Lauer was just fired from NBC for ‘inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.’ But when will the top executives at NBC & Comcast be fired for putting out so much Fake News. Check out Andy Lack’s past!” 

A representative for NBC News did not immediately respond to questions regarding Trump’s tweet.

 

 
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Egyptian Diva, Golden Epoch Actress, Singer Shadia, Dies at 86

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Shadia, an Egyptian actress and singer who captivated millions for decades, has died. She was 86.

Born Fatimah Shaker but known throughout her career by her single stage name, Shadia suffered a stroke this month and later went into a coma. She died late on Tuesday.

Shadia has more than a 100 films to her name and hundreds of singles in a career that stretches back to the late 1940s.

Her film roles ranged from those depicting country girls, career women, to comical portrayals of emotionally disturbed women and hopeless romantics.

Her iconic songs have defined the entertainment scene for decades, mostly with hit singles in Egypt’s distinctive vernacular Arabic.

Shadia lived in almost total seclusion after she retired more than two decades ago.

Her funeral is due later Wednesday.
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India Unveils New Recommendations to Reinforce Strict Net Neutrality

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

India has strongly backed a free and open Internet, with its telecom regulator recommending stringent regulations on net neutrality – the concept of ensuring equal access to the web — saying it is important the Internet is not “cannibalized.”

 

India’s push for net neutrality comes at a time when the United States has unveiled plans to roll back regulations on it.

 “The core principles of net neutrality, non-discriminatory treatment of all content, we’ve upheld them,” R.S. Sharma, Chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, TRAI, told reporters as he unveiled recommendations following a year-long debate.

These proposals seek to prohibit any service provider from blocking or offering preferential data speeds which essentially means that telecom providers cannot create “fast lanes” for higher paying customers or speed up or slow down websites and apps.

Equal access

Advocates of net neutrality, who have led an impassioned battle to ensure equal web access, welcomed the latest recommendations, saying that these would ensure that India is among countries with the strictest net neutrality rules in the world. Last year India put in place rules that prohibited telecoms from differential pricing.

India’s IT industry lobby, NASSCOM, in a statement, said the reaffirmation of net neutrality would be a “shot in the arm” for the country’s digital economy.

Nikhil Pahwa, one of the founders of Internet Freedom Foundation, which has campaigned for strict net neutrality, says open access to the Internet is critical for India.

“This is really, really essential. It is important for India because we are at the cusp of great Internet growth and innovation with lots of start-ups coming up and students and people developing things online,” he said.

India’s stand on net neutrality had last year effectively blocked efforts by Facebook to offer free but limited access to the web in the country’s fast growing Internet market.

The company said it wanted to expand access to the net in poor, rural areas but digital rights activists had slammed the plan as “poor Internet for poor people” and said it would create a “walled garden” in which Facebook would control the content it offered users. A Facebook spokesperson at the time said the company was disappointed by the outcome but would continue its efforts to “eliminate barriers.”

80 million users

Supporters of an open Internet point out that India’s experience demonstrates that net neutrality rules are not hampering access to the Internet in a country where many people are still not connected to the web.

“In the last year alone we have added about 80 million Internet users. There has been a substantial increase in Internet access in the country and it is increasing rapidly despite net neutrality. So this notion that net neutrality is adversarial to growth of Internet access or to sustainability of mobile operators is incorrect,” said Pahwa.

India’s position on ensuring an open Internet is in contrast to the U.S., where last week the U.S. Federal Communications Commission unveiled plans to repeal net neutrality rules, saying they discourage Internet service providers from making investments in their network to provide better and faster online access.

India’s strict net neutrality rules have disappointed private telecom providers, who had hoped for some leeway in the latest recommendations.

In an oblique reference to the U.S. position, a statement from the telecom industry’s main lobby group, the Cellular Operators Association of India, said that at a time when, globally, countries are adopting a more “market oriented, and market driven approach to net neutrality in order to not stifle development, innovation, proliferation and growth of the Internet, we believe TRAI should have adopted a light touch approach to net neutrality.”
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Rising HIV Infections See Iran Challenge Notions About Sex

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

In a square in a poor eastern Tehran neighborhood known for its drug addicts and dealers, psychologist Atefeh Azimi draws another drop of blood from a worried passer-by’s finger.

 

She works on a nearby bench, where a sign next to her in English and in Farsi urges the public to receive free voluntary counseling and HIV testing.

 

But her worries, as well as those of her aid group called Reviving Values, are not confined these days just to those sharing needles to inject heroin that comes across the border from Afghanistan’s thriving opium trade.

 

Iran has seen a surge in the number of HIV infections spread by sex, especially among its youth. What’s more, authorities say many have no idea that they are infected.

 

That has led to growing uncomfortable questions in the Islamic Republic, where sex outside of marriage is prohibited and those who practice it can face arrest and severe punishment.

 

Some have dared challenge the long-standing taboos in Iran surrounding sex, speaking publicly about the need for safe sex, sex education and regular HIV testing.

 

“Everybody has a very bad attitude toward this disease,” said Mahboobeh Zeinali, an HIV-positive woman living in Tehran. “They even think if they wash their hand where I do they can be infected, but they can’t.”

 

According to government estimates, 66,000 people out of Iran’s 80 million people have HIV, though about 30,000 of them have no idea they have the virus. Iranian authorities blame that on how little general knowledge many have about the virus.

 

By comparison, in the United States, government statistics suggest 1.1 million people live with HIV, with one in seven not knowing it.

 

More than 50 percent of those with HIV in Iran are between 21 and 35, said Parvin Afsar Kazerouni, the head of the Health Ministry’s AIDS department. That’s despite that age group representing about 28 percent of Iran’s population as a whole.

 

The number of those infected through sex continues to rise.

 

“If we look at five or six years ago, the rate of infection through sex was around 16 or 17 percent, to 20 percent at the most. … Now it is up to 40 percent or even more in some provinces,” Dr. Mohammad Mahdi Gouya, Iran’s deputy health minister, told The Associated Press. “This is an alert for us, the people and the officials. They are addressing this issue very seriously.”

 

Societal mores play a part in the rise of HIV infections. As a Muslim country, Iranian clerics preach against sex outside of marriage and sex isn’t often discussed among children and parents. Schools offer little sexual education as well.

 

Sex outside of marriage is illegal and some have been prosecuted for merely shaking hands with a member of the opposite sex under Iran’s strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Shariah. However, police rarely interfere with young couples in Tehran walking hand-in-hand and whispering to each other.

 

The government blames drugs in part for the increase in HIV infections — though not those narcotics that are injected with a needle.

 

“Ecstasy drugs, synthetic addictive drugs and amphetamine combinations dramatically and abnormally raise sexual desire,” Gouya said.

 

Views on sex are also changing in Iran.

 

Previously, Iran allowed so-called “temporary marriages” or “sigheh” — a legal contract under Sharia law that allows a couple to share a hotel room or travel together, though it’s not publicly or officially backed by the government. The contracts last anything between several hours to a few years but are increasingly abandoned in mainstream life in most of the Muslim world.

 

Lately, Tehran has seen a quiet move toward so-called “white marriages,” or couples living together before being married even though it remains illegal.

 

Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s chief of staff, has criticized the practice, warning the “loose generation” that its offspring will “be illegitimate.”

 

Widespread access to satellite television, which in theory remains banned by authorities, also offers young Iranians access to images of Western culture, as does the internet.

 

About 60 percent of divorces across Iran come from those unhappy with sex in their marriages, said Mohammad Mahdi Labibi, a sociology professor at Tehran’s Azad University.

 

“When one of them is not satisfied, they will look for it outside their marriage,” in secret, Labibi said. Such “hidden sex increases the chance of being infected by any disease, including HIV.”

 

Prostitution also has been acknowledged by the government as a problem. Members of parliament have discussed the issue before, along with other “social problems,” according to Iranian media reports.

 

Today, Iran’s government treats some 10,000 people either infected with HIV or those with already developed AIDS, which weakens the immune system and gradually destroys the body’s ability to fight infections and certain cancers. It typically costs the government $16,000 a year to treat a patient, Gouya said.

 

Iranian society often ostracizes HIV-positive people, especially women.

 

“Most women here are in charge of their families, and unfortunately finding a job for them is very difficult,” said Najimeh Babagol, a psychologist who works with HIV-positive women. “Many of them get rejected went they reveal [they are HIV positive] at work. I can say this stigma and discrimination is the biggest problem they are facing.”

 

Khosro Mansourian, who leads the Reviving Values aid group, said sex education and better understanding can help solve that.

 

“Sex education should start from the kindergarten age,” he said. “Every child should have full knowledge about sexual characteristics so that they can protect themselves and especially learn they have the ability to say no.”

Gouya agrees that the young should have sex education.

 

“Our youth must learn about sexual issues in schools,” he said. “Prevention is much easier than treatment of AIDS.”

 

 
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NASA Plans New Rover for Mars 2020 Mission

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

NASA’s next mission to Mars in 2020 will feature a souped-up unmanned rover vehicle to search for signs of ancient microbial life in areas of the uninhabitable red planet.

The successor to the 2012 Curiosity rover, which could launch in July or August 2020, will be equipped with seven new instruments and re-designed wheels, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said.

The new vehicle will study the Mars terrain, above and below the surface, and collect soil and rock samples.

“What we learn from the samples collected during this mission has the potential to address whether we’re alone in the universe,” said Ken Farley, a JPL scientist with the Mars 2020 project.

JPL is also developing a new landing technology that will allow the rover to visit sites deemed too risky for Curiosity and shave miles off its journey.

NASA has successfully landed spacecraft on Mars seven times and is using the International Space Station to prepare for human missions to the moon and Mars.
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Solar Power Glass Bricks Generate Energy While Letting In Light

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Buildings could soon be able to convert the sun’s energy into electricity without the need for solar panels, thanks to innovative new technology. VOA’s Faith Lapidus reports.
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