Month: December 2017

US, EU, Japan Slam Market Distortion in Swipe at China

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

The United States, European Union and Japan vowed Tuesday to work together to fight market-distorting trade practices and policies that have fueled excess production capacity, naming several key features of China’s economic system.

In a joint statement that did not single out China or any other country, the three economic powers said they would work within the World Trade Organization and other multilateral groups to eliminate unfair competitive conditions caused by subsidies, state-owned enterprises, “forced” technology transfer and local content requirements.

The move was a rare show of solidarity with the United States at a World Trade Organization meeting dominated by differences over U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” trade agenda and U.S. efforts to stall the appointment of WTO judges.

It reflected growing frustration among industrial countries over China’s trade practices, along with concerns that other developing countries will follow Beijing’s lead.

The statement said protectionist practices “are serious concerns for the proper functioning of international trade, the creation of innovative technologies and the sustainable growth of the global economy.”

EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said China’s industry subsidies, including for aluminum and steel, were flooding global markets and hurting European workers in a “very, very dramatic” way.

“There’s no secret that we think that China is a big sinner here, but there are other countries that are as well,” Malmstrom told reporters on the sidelines of a business forum.

In the opening session of the WTO ministerial conference in Buenos Aires on Monday, the United States and Japan criticized a lack of transparency in some WTO members’ trade practices, a thinly veiled swipe at Beijing.

China, meanwhile, appealed for members to “join hands” and uphold WTO rules to protect globalization in the face of rising protectionism.

The joint statement came after Japan approached the European Union and the United States about overcapacity, according to an EU source, with both Tokyo and Brussels concerned about the possibility the Trump administration could act unilaterally.

“There is a thought that if we bring them into the fold, and can work jointly with them, then it reduces the risk of them going alone,” the source said.

​’Playing by the rules’

Washington, Brussels and Tokyo have previously raised complaints about China’s excess production capacity in a number of industrial sectors that has pushed down world prices and caused layoffs elsewhere.

The United States recently sided with the EU in arguing that such distortions mean the WTO should not grant China market economy status, a move that would severely weaken their trade defenses.

“We have been … reaching out to China to tell them they really must start playing by the rules,” Malmstrom told reporters.

The EU’s and Japan’s willingness to cooperate with the Trump administration comes despite disagreements over the role of the WTO and the future of multilateral trade deals. 

Trump has expressed his preference for bilateral negotiations, and his trade rhetoric has cast a cloud over the WTO meeting.

Efforts on Tuesday to make progress on a ministerial statement from all 164 WTO members were unsuccessful, since one country could not agree on the language, WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell told reporters, declining to name that country.

U.S. officials last month blocked WTO efforts to draft a statement of unity over the “centrality” of the global trading system and the need to aid development.

A spokeswoman for the office of the U.S. trade representative could not be immediately reached for comment.

The Trump administration is considering several unilateral tariff actions on steel, aluminum and China’s intellectual property practices that are likely to draw disputes from WTO members.
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‘A Fantastic Woman’ Director Celebrates Golden Globe Nod

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Director Sebastian Lelio feels that A Fantastic Woman has gone beyond the cinematic experience with its social message, to a great extent thanks to the performance of its star, Daniela Vega.

The film follows Marina, a transgender woman who, after the passing of her older lover, is mistreated by his family and the police officers investigating his death. It is Chile’s selection for the Academy Awards and on Monday was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in the best foreign film category.

“I am very proud of Daniela, of how she faced the challenge of a movie that not only meant an absolute leading role … that goes through an emotional spectrum, but that in addition flies, faces windstorms, sings two operatic arias. In short, it’s a polytonal role of great complexity and she … didn’t have much experience, so it was an all-or-nothing betting,” Lelio told The Associated Press in a phone interview shortly after the Globes nominations were announced.

“It was very beautiful to see how she gave herself completely and played this character with such complexity and beauty,” he added about Vega, whose performance has received Oscars buzz. If she is nominated next month, it would be the first Oscar nomination for a transgender actress.

“Somehow Daniela’s presence and the power that her body brings are the heart of the movie and it has been very nice and exciting to witness how she has become a voice not only of the movie but a sort of symbol of everything that is fragile, cornered,” said Lelio. “In some ways this is when cinema surpasses cinema and gets in the social fabric, and that is very powerful.”

​A winner in Berlin

A Fantastic Woman debuted last February at the Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Teddy Award for best feature film as well as the Silver Bear for its screenplay, written by Lelio and Gonzalo Maza. Among other honors, it has also been nominated at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Lelio is in Los Angeles filming an English version of his acclaimed 2013 film Gloria, starring Oscar-winner Julianne Moore.

“It has been very exciting to be able to revisit what’s universal in the story and see a performer as powerful as Julianne Moore playing this role,” he said.

For now, he is savoring the Globes nomination, where A Fantastic Woman will compete against Angelina Jolie’s First They Killed My Father (Cambodia), In the Fade (Germany/France), Loveless (Russia) and The Square (Sweden/Germany/France).

“It’s a joy for the team, for everyone who made this movie, to be among this select group of such powerful movies that have been selected,” the director said.

As for Vega, he said: “I spoke to her this morning and she was very happy with the news. She is already getting her dress.”
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Afreximbank Pledges Up to $1.5B to Post-Mugabe Zimbabwe

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

The African Export and Import Bank has pledged up to $1.5 billion in new loans and financial guarantees to Zimbabwe in a major boost for new President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government, the bank’s president and chairman said Tuesday.

Mnangagwa, who took over last month after veteran autocrat Robert Mugabe quit following a de facto military coup, has vowed to focus on reviving the struggling economy and provide jobs in a nation with an unemployment rate exceeding 80 percent.

Afreximbank was the only international lender that stood by Zimbabwe throughout Mugabe’s repressive 37-year rule, but its quick announcement of a fresh package of loans and guarantees appeared to be a vote of confidence in the new government.

Cairo-based Afreximbank was a major funder of Zimbabwe while the country was cut off from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank for having defaulted on its debt in 1999.

Bank president and chairman Okey Oramah told reporters after a meeting with Mnangagwa and senior government officials that Afreximbank would provide $150 million to local banks to help them pay for outstanding critical imports.

“We also discussed a number of other areas that involve additional investment from us for something that will be in the order of $1 billion to $1.5 billion that will include certain kinds of guarantees to encourage investors to come to Zimbabwe.

“We … want to make sure that we support the stabilization of the economy, that means providing liquidity to make sure that the situation where people are rushing every time to look for cash is dealt with,” Oramah said.

In August, before Mugabe’s ouster, Afreximbank provided $600 million to help Zimbabwe pay for imports and $300 million to allow it to print more “bond notes,” a quasi-currency that officially trades on par with the U.S. dollar.

Zimbabwe has a foreign debt of more than $7 billion and in September said it would not be able to pay $1.8 billion in arrears to the World Bank and African Development Bank until economic fundamentals improved.

The southern African nation, which dumped its hyperinflation-hit currency in 2009, is struggling with a severe dollar crunch that has seen banks fail to avail cash to customers while importers struggle to pay for imports.

Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa promised in a budget speech last week to re-engage with international lenders, curb spending and attract investors to revive the economy.

On Tuesday, Chinamasa described Afreximbank as a “pillar of strength” and said the economy was “in for some very good times.”
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Trump’s Climate Politics Propel US Scientist to New Start in France

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

When U.S.-based scientist Christopher Cantrell heard President Donald Trump pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, he did not imagine that six months later he would be shaking the French leader’s hand and starting anew in France.

Hours after Trump’s announcement in June, President Emmanuel Macron made a dramatic TV announcement in English, responding that he would not give up the fight against climate change and adding in a dig: “Make our planet great again.”

That later became the name of a research grant program sponsored by the French presidency to attract U.S.-based scientists — like Cantrell, 62, an expert in atmospheric chemistry at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“It was all over the news in the United States and on social media,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of a summit in Paris marking the Paris accord’s two year anniversary.

“I found out about a week ago that I was successful. This is going to be fun,” he said.

Moving for the funding

For Cantrell, the decision to move to France is not a political one, but a response to a gradual decline in public funds in his field, which he did not expect to get better under Trump.

“I’ve been disappointed with this whole administration, as to how they … view the world of science and policy-making,” Cantrell said.

“I wouldn’t say I’m coming to France to get away from the Trump administration, but it was an opportunity that wasn’t available in the United States,” he added.

Macron, who repeatedly tried to persuade the U.S. leader to reverse his decision, also sees an opportunity to raise the profile of French research institutes and attract top talent.

‘World-class’

Some 1,822 researchers applied for the program, the French presidency said, with almost two thirds of them coming from the United States.

Thirteen of the initial 18 grants awarded on Monday were given to U.S.-based scientists, including some from prominent Ivy League universities such as Princeton, Stanford and Harvard.

A second batch of grants will be awarded early next year.

Cantrell, who works on air quality and what happens to pollution when the atmosphere tries to process it, will be based at the University of Paris-Est in the suburb of Creteil. He will study the Paris plume — the cloud of pollution that regularly shrouds the French capital. 

“This laboratory that I’m going to be associated with has world-class expertise, state-of-the-art computer models to simulate the atmosphere, so this place I’m going to is actually perfect for the kind of work I’m interested in,” he said.

Salary covered for five years

The 1.5-million-euro ($1.76-million) French grant means the constant hunt for funds to finance his research that was part of his daily life in the U.S. was now less of a concern.

“It’s been tough. Now I’ll be able to not have to worry about that part of it. My salary is covered for five years, I can focus on science,” he said.

He and his wife are now busy brushing up on their French.

“I came for a week to visit the lab, see the kind of things they did, I got to meet the staff, English works fine for all the people that work there,” he said.

 
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A Breakthrough Year for Brooklynn Prince of ‘The Florida Project’

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Seven-year-old Brooklynn Prince is sitting in a darkened TV studio with lights, cameras and control panels all around her. “Mission to Mars, mission to Mars,” she says. “This is Apollo.”

 

Brooklynn, the cheerful star of “The Florida Project,” has indeed lifted off. Her performance as Moonee, a brash, trouble-making pipsqueak living with her mom (Bria Vinaite) in a low-rent Orlando motel, may be the most spirited thing of 2017. Brooklynn is the exuberant energy at the center of one the year’s most acclaimed films, and some believe she should be the youngest Oscar nominee ever. Brooklynn included.

 

“I really want to be nominated,” she says. “Even if I get close to nominated, that’s a real honor.”

 

But she’d also — maybe even more so — really like to meet Emma Watson and Elle Fanning.

“They have been my girls for years,” she says.

 

None of the year’s breakthrough performers has enjoyed their moment more than Brooklyn. She has shot a selfie with Gary Oldman, shaken hands with Adam Sandler and met Margot Robbie, whom she confirms was “super-duper nice.”

 

“I never thought I would have this chance,” Brooklynn says. “It’s this crazy little movie that’s everywhere.”

She has Instagramed, Snapchatted and tweeted her adventures, from the Cannes Film Festival to the recent Gotham Awards, by borrowing her parents’ phones. She carries pins for homeless awareness with her to give away as a way to magnify the message of “The Florida Project.”

 

“I’ve always said: It doesn’t matter how small you are or what age you are to change the world. You can get into the business anytime. I was two when I got into the business,” says Brooklynn, the veteran. “Now I know that this is really what I want. My mom and dad aren’t pushing me for this. It’s what I want. Acting is, like, my life and I want to keep doing it forever.”
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‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Mostly Finds Its Force With Critics

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” won warm reviews from most critics on Tuesday, a day before the latest installment in the sci-fi saga begins hitting movie theaters worldwide in what is projected to be the biggest-grossing movie of 2017.

The Walt Disney Co. movie received four or five stars from most reviewers, along with praise for its energy and emotion. “The Last Jedi” scored a 94 percent “fresh” rating on aggregator site RottenTomatoes.com.

The film, arriving in movie theaters from Dec. 13, picks up from 2015’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which took in more than $2 billion at the global box office to become the third-biggest-grossing movie of all time.

Written and directed by Rian Johnson, “The Last Jedi” kicks off with the Resistance fighting Supreme Leader Snoke’s First Order, which is trying to take control of the galaxy.

The movie features the final appearance of Carrie Fisher, who plays the franchise’s Princess Leia. The actress died at age 60 last December, weeks after completing filming.

Numerous critics including The Hollywood Reporter felt that at 2-1/2 hours, the movie’s run time was a little too long. But the Hollywood Reporter added, “there’s a pervasive freshness and enthusiasm to Johnson’s approach that keeps the film, and with it the franchise, alive, and that is no doubt what matters most.”

The London Times newspaper deemed it the best “Star Wars” movie yet, calling it a “film of wit and wonder, of eye-gouging visual spectacle, and one that is buttressed by entirely unexpected, and frequently devastating, emotional power.”

Entertainment Weekly said “The Last Jedi” was a “triumph with flaws,” while USA Today said it was “a stellar entry” in the “Star Wars” franchise.

The Washington Post praised the film’s “irreverent humor and worshipful love for the original text.”

Variety was among a handful of less enthusiastic reviews, calling the film “ultimately a disappointment.” CNN said “Last Jedi” felt “like a significant letdown, one that does far less than its predecessor to stoke enthusiasm for the next leg in the trilogy.”

Before the reviews were out, Boxoffice.com projected that “Last Jedi” would haul in $185 million to $215 million in North America in its first weekend, which would rank as one of the biggest film debuts in history.

Disney said in November that Johnson will oversee a new trilogy of “Star Wars” films that will not follow the Skywalker saga, which George Lucas kicked off in 1977.

 

 
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Russia’s Olympic Committee to Support its Neutral Athletes at Winter Games

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Russia’s Olympic Committee agreed on Tuesday to support its athletes who choose to compete in next year’s Winter Games in South Korea as neutrals following a ban on the Russian national team.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) last week banned Russia from the Games, due to take place in Pyeongchang in February, for what it called “unprecedented systematic manipulation” of the anti-doping system.

But it left the door open for Russian athletes with a clean history of non-doping to be invited to compete as neutrals under an Olympic flag, not a Russian one.

President Vladimir Putin said last week Russia would not prevent its athletes from competing, dismissing calls by some for a boycott, and a Russian Olympic official said on Monday most Russian athletes still wanted to attend.

The Russian committee (ROC) agreed on its position at a meeting on Tuesday attended by sporting figures including the national men’s hockey team, figure skaters, speed skaters and the presidents of winter sports federations.

“All the participants were of the same opinion — our sportsmen need to go to Korea, need to compete, achieve victory for the glory of Russia, for the glory of our motherland,” ROC President Alexander Zhukov said.

Zhukov said Russia would do its best to support Russian athletes competing under a neutral flag and hold serious talks with the IOC in the near future to discuss the problems and practicalities of the arrangement.

He did not say what form this support would take.

“Russian sportsmen have stated their readiness to take part in the Olympic Games, despite the difficult conditions and decision of the IOC, which is undoubtedly unfair in many ways,” he said.

Zhukov added that Russia would also support the athletes who had decided not to compete in Pyeongchang.

Senior Russian Olympic official Vitaly Smirnov, who heads Russia’s state-backed anti-doping commission, said the country had made the “right decision” not to boycott.

“A boycott is not a solution,” Smirnov said. “That [would mean] new sanctions and problems for our athletes.”

In recent weeks, more than 30 Russian athletes who competed at the 2014 Sochi Games have been banned for life from the Olympics for allegedly breaching anti-doping rules.

And the IOC slapped lifetime bans on six Russian female ice hockey players a few hours after the Russian announcement Tuesday.

Russian authorities have vehemently denied any state support for doping and have pledged to cooperate with international sports bodies to counter the use of banned performance-enhancing drugs.

Russia’s athletics federation, paralympic committee and anti-doping agency RUSADA remain suspended over doping scandals.

‘Olympic Athlete from Russia’

Sitting in the front row of the Russian Olympic Committee auditorium ahead of the meeting, hockey star Ilya Kovalchuk said he would not mind competing at the Games as an “Olympic Athlete from Russia,” the term the IOC uses to designate the Russians who will go to Pyeongchang.

“We are athletes from Russia, after all,” Kovalchuk told reporters. “They took the flag away but they can’t take away our honor and our conscience.”

Kovalchuk, one of the first to call for athletes to compete in Pyeongchang after the IOC ban, thanked authorities for taking the opinions of athletes into consideration.

“Thank you for having heard us, for having believed us,” Kovalchuk said. “I think that every athlete who takes part in the Olympic Games in Pyeonchang will do everything possible.”

Olympic fencer Sofya Velikaya, chair of the ROC’s athletes commission, called on the Russian public to respect athletes’ decisions to go to Pyeongchang amid concerns that some could be branded traitors for agreeing to compete without the country’s flag.

“The athletes will show their love for their motherland and their patriotism through their results, through their accomplishments and medals,” Velikaya said.
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Filipino Houses From Debris, Californian Fruit Pickers’ Homes Win Major Award

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

A project in the Philippines that used debris to rebuild typhoon-ravaged houses and Californian homes providing year-round housing for migrant workers won one of the world’s most prestigious housing awards on Tuesday.

The development charity CARE used innovative techniques, such as teaching building skills to residents and using wreckage from destroyed homes, to rehouse more than 15,000 Filipino families devastated in 2013 by Typhoon Haiyan.

“This is the first time self-recovery has been used on such a large scale,” said David Ireland, director of British charity World Habitat, which co-hosts the World Habitat Awards together with the United Nations (U.N.) settlement program, UN-Habitat.

“It has helped more people, more quickly, than traditional disaster recovery programs. The potential of this approach to be used elsewhere is absolutely huge.”

The winners of the competition, which was established in 1985, received 10,000 pounds and opportunities to share their ideas around the world.

The second winner was Mutual Housing, a not-for-profit affordable housing developer in Yolo County in northern California, which built the first permanent year-round homes for seasonal fruit and vegetable pickers.

Tens of thousands of workers are brought in from Central America at harvest time to do low-wage jobs, often living in sub-standard houses in government-funded migrant centers.

“It has been a complete 180 degree turn since we’ve been living here,” said Saul Menses, who moved into one of Mutual Housing’s 62 apartments and houses in Spring Lake, some 60 miles (97 km) northeast of San Francisco, in 2015.

“For five years, we lived in an apartment there that was very cold and in poor condition. My wife had to board the windows up with tape and unclog the sink daily.”

The Spring Lake houses are the United States’ first certified zero-energy rental homes, meaning they consume less energy than they produce, using solar power, efficient lights and drought-resistant landscaping.

Seasonal work also disrupts family life for the estimated 6,000 migrants who come to Yolo County for the harvest, making it difficult for children to stay in one school. The new houses are less than 1 km from a secondary school and other services.

“Seasonal agricultural laborers are one of the most marginalized groups in the USA,” said World Habitat’s Ireland. “Mutual Housing California have managed to help a group not normally reached and proven that you don’t have to be a homeowner or on a high income to embrace green lifestyles.”
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Trump Signs into Law US Government Ban on Kaspersky Lab Software

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

President Donald Trump signed into law on Tuesday legislation that bans the use of Kaspersky Lab within the U.S. government, capping a months-long effort to purge the Moscow-based antivirus firm from federal agencies amid concerns it was vulnerable to Kremlin influence.

The ban, included as part of broader defense policy spending legislation that Trump signed, reinforces a directive issued by the Trump administration in September that civilian agencies remove Kaspersky Lab software within 90 days. The law applies to both civilian and military networks.

“The case against Kaspersky is well-documented and deeply concerning. This law is long overdue,” said Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who led calls in Congress to scrub the software from government computers. She added that the company’s software represented a “grave risk” to U.S. national security.

Kaspersky Lab has repeatedly denied that it has ties to any government and said it would not help a government with cyber espionage. In an attempt to address suspicions, the company said in October it would submit the source code of its software and future updates for inspection by independent parties.

U.S. officials have said that step, while welcomed, would not be sufficient.

In a statement on Tuesday, Kaspersky Lab said it continued to have “serious concerns” about the law “due to its geographic-specific approach to cybersecurity.”

It added that the company was assessing its options and would continue to “protect its customers from cyber threats (while) collaborating globally with the IT security community to fight cybercrime.”

On Tuesday, Christopher Krebs, a senior cyber security official at the Department of Homeland Security, told reporters that nearly all government agencies had fully removed Kaspersky products from their networks in compliance with the September order.

Kaspersky’ official response to the ban did not appear to contain any information that would change the administration’s assessment of Kaspersky Lab, Krebs said.
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Smaller Farms Can Cope Better With Climate Change in India, Say Analysts

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India’s small farmers are better equipped than large landowners to deal with climate change, but need more support to find innovative ways to minimize the impacts of higher temperatures, uneven rainfall, floods and droughts, analysts said.

About 60 percent of India’s population of 1.3 billion depends on agriculture for a living. More than three quarters of farmers cultivate than 2 hectares (5 acres) of land each.

While the small size of the land holding is often seen as a challenge to raising incomes, it is an advantage when it comes to tackling extreme weather and rising temperatures, said Arindom Datta, Asia head of sustainability banking at Rabobank.

Mono cropping

“Large farmers tend to do mono cropping, which is far more vulnerable to climate change, and more difficult to change and adapt as the situation demands. Plus they need more water, another resource under threat from warmer weather,” he said.

“Small farmers are far more versatile; they usually plant multiple varieties of crops, so they are more flexible and better able to adjust and adapt,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to double farmers’ incomes over the next five years, with reforms including better irrigation, crop insurance and higher prices for crops.

​Size of land holdings drop 

Poor prices for grains and cereal have led to mounting piles of debt for Indian farmers, triggering thousands of suicides every year. More than two-thirds of farmers who committed suicide were small and marginal farmers, data show.

The average size of land holdings in rural India has halved over the past two decades as land is passed down from father to son, and as more land is surrendered for development projects.

While a law caps the amount of land that can be owned by individual farmers, several states have introduced leasing laws to enable farmers to increase the land under cultivation.

Training for women farmers

But smaller land holdings are better suited if the government invests in training — particularly for women — on topics such as traditional grains such as millets, said Ishira Mehta, founder of CropConnect Enterprises, which links farmers to markets.

“With rising temperatures, we may not be able to grow basmati rice or wheat 20 years from now; we need to revive traditional grains that are more climate resilient,” she said.

“Women farmers in particular are more adaptable, more willing to learn about new harvest and marketing methods. But they cannot tackle the problem on their own.”

Farmers in the southern state of Tamil Nadu are already returning to indigenous varieties of rice and traditional seeds as the region suffers more frequent droughts.
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US Retailer Aims to Give Tech Experience to Immigrant Teens

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

A major U.S. electronic retailer says it wants to help immigrant and underprivileged teens gain the technology skills they’ll need for the job market.

Best Buy, in partnership with a local nongovernmental organization known as the Brian Coyle Center, has opened a tech center in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside area. The center provides after-school computer classes for teens in the area, many of whom come from East African immigrant families.

The company plans to open 60 such centers nationwide by 2020. Trish Walker, the president of service for Best Buy, said the aim is to train a million teens each year to help them be prepared for tech-related jobs.

“Here, teens can learn so many skills, from coding to web programming, music production, 3-D design, editing, fashion design, getting leadership skills, entrepreneurship, mentoring from others,” Walker said at the opening ceremony for the center. “Great stuff to be able to prepare the teens for workforce for the future. Eighty percent of the future [jobs] are tech-related.”

Hamza Nur is a Somali youth who spent four years learning at the first Minneapolis-area Best Buy tech center, where he learned how to digitally edit and draw.

“I learned so much, and am grateful,” Nur said at the ceremony. “I think this is a great idea that we can all learn from. I think the idea of tech center is pretty great one, because it lets all the youth of Cedar have a great experience with technology.”

Abdirahman Mukhtar, the youth program director at the Brian Coyle Center, says the center gives young people a positive outlet through which to channel their energy, and it helps to keep them away from drugs and gangs, which have been recurring problems in the area.

“The time of the program is after-school time, and it’s [then] that a youth has free time and can commit negative habits,” he told VOA’s Somali service.

Minneapolis is home to the United States’ largest communities of Somali and East African immigrants, most of whom came to the U.S. because of armed conflicts in their home countries.
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‘Integrity Idol’ Celebrates Honest Civil Servants in West Africa

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

A reality TV show that celebrates honest civil servants in corruption-plagued countries has grown to reach new audiences in Mali and Liberia and aims to enlist the public’s help in fighting graft, the organizers said.

Integrity Idol asks the public to nominate model civil servants and then vote for their favorite by text message after the finalists appear on national TV and radio.

The show launched in Nepal in 2014 and has since spread to Pakistan, Nigeria, Mali and Liberia.

In finals this weekend in the West African nations of Liberia and Mali, a nursing instructor and a teacher were voted the winners from among thousands of nominees.

“There are lots of challenges to being a person of integrity in Liberia,” said winner Rebecca Scotland, a nursing teacher in Liberia’s capital Monrovia.

Corruption is so common in Liberia and across the region that patients even bribe nurses to ensure they receive the proper medicine and care, she said.

“Sometimes my colleagues push me away because I have integrity. They say I am hard to deal with, that I won’t change,” she said in an interview with Integrity Idol.

She plans to create a network with other winners to boost honesty and transparency in the public sector, she told Reuters following the award.

Liberia is in the midst of an election to replace President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf that has been delayed by allegations of fraud. The Supreme Court cleared it for a runoff last week.

The country ranked 90th out of 176 countries on watchdog Transparency International’s global corruption perception index last year, while Mali ranked 116th.

In Mali, politicians are sometimes arrested for graft but avoid penalties because the judges are also corrupt, said Moussa Kondo, who launched Integrity Idol there last year.

“We want to show young generations that there’s another way to become famous, without getting rich,” he told Reuters.

Mali’s winner Mahamane Mahamane Baba teaches at a public high school in Timbuktu and organizes literacy classes in his free time.

The show has grown quickly in both countries, said its organizers at U.S.-based organization Accountability Lab.

In Mali, people made 3,011 nominations for Integrity Idol this year compared to 2,850 last year, said Kondo.

Liberians submitted 4,689 nominations this year, more than three times the number when the show started in 2015, while the reach of the campaign through radio and TV stations has grown eight-fold to over 4 million people.

“Especially given the difficult situation with electoral politics at the moment, it is inspiring to see so many people discussing and voting for government officials with integrity,” said Lawrence Yealue, director of Liberia’s Accountability Lab.
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Arctic Report Card: Permafrost Thawing Faster Than Before

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Permafrost in the Arctic is thawing at a faster clip, according to a new report released Tuesday.

 

Water is also warming and sea ice is melting at the fastest pace in 1,500 years at the top of the world.

 

The annual report released Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed slightly less warming in many measurements than a record hot 2016. But scientists remain concerned because the far northern region is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe and has reached a level of warming that’s unprecedented in modern times.

 

“2017 continued to show us we are on this deepening trend where the Arctic is a very different place than it was even a decade ago,” said Jeremy Mathis, head of NOAA’s Arctic research program and co-author of the 93-page report.

 

Findings were discussed at the American Geophysical Union meeting in New Orleans.

 

“What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic; it affects the rest of the planet,” said acting NOAA chief Timothy Gallaudet. “The Arctic has huge influence on the world at large.”

 

Permafrost is the permanently frozen layer below the Earth’s surface in frigid areas. Records show the frozen ground that many buildings, roads and pipelines are built on reached record warm temperatures last year nearing and sometimes exceeding the thawing point. That could make them vulnerable when the ground melts and shifts, the report said. Unlike other readings, permafrost data tend to lag a year.

 

Preliminary reports from the U.S. and Canada in 2017 showed permafrost temperatures are “again the warmest for all sites” measured in North America, said study co-author Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.

 

Arctic sea ice usually shrinks in September and this year it was only the eighth lowest on record for the melting season. But scientists said they were most concerned about what happens in the winter — especially March — when sea ice is supposed to be building to its highest levels.

 

Arctic winter sea ice maximum levels in 2017 were the smallest they’ve ever been for the season when ice normally grows. It was the third straight year of record low winter sea ice recovery. Records go back to 1979.

 

About 79 percent of the Arctic sea ice is thin and only a year old. In 1985, 45 percent of the sea ice in the Arctic was thick, older ice, said NOAA Arctic scientist Emily Osborne.

 

New research looking into the Arctic’s past using ice cores, fossils, corals and shells as stand-ins for temperature measurements show that Arctic ocean temperatures are rising and sea ice levels are falling at rates not seen in the 1,500 years. And those dramatic changes coincide with the large increase in carbon dioxide levels in the air from the burning of oil, gas and coal, the report said.

 

This isn’t just a concern for the few people who live north of the Arctic Circle. Changes in the Arctic can alter fish supply. And more ice-free Arctic summers can lead to countries competing to exploit new areas for resources. Research also shows changes in Arctic sea ice and temperature can alter the jet stream, which is a major factor in U.S. weather.

 

This is probably partly responsible for the current unusual weather in the United States that brought destructive wildfires to California and a sharp cold snap to the South and East, according to NOAA scientist James Overland and private meteorologist expert Judah Cohen.

 

“The Arctic has traditionally been the refrigerator to the planet, but the door of the refrigerator has been left open,” Mathis said.

 

Outside scientists praised the report card.

 

“Overall, the new data fit with the long-term trends, showing the clear evidence of warming causing major changes,” in the Arctic, said Pennsylvania State University ice scientist Richard Alley.
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Facebook to Book Advertising Revenue Locally Amid Political Pressure

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Social media giant Facebook said on Tuesday it would start booking advertising revenue locally instead of re-routing it via its international headquarters in Dublin although the move is unlikely to result in it paying much more tax.

Corporate taxation has become a hot-button topic in the wake of revelations of tax avoidance schemes by multinationals which have led to calls for companies to pay more tax while Europe has begun exploring options for taxing digital giants.

Facebook Chief Financial Officer Dave Wehner said the company had decided to move to a local selling structure in countries where it has an office to support sales to local advertisers.

“In simple terms, this means that advertising revenue supported by our local teams will no longer be recorded by our international headquarters in Dublin, but will instead be recorded by our local company in that country,” Wehner said in a blog post.

Tuesday’s announcement follows Facebook’s April 2016 shift to recording revenues from its large U.K. sales customers in Britain which resulted in an increase in the tax it paid.

“We believe that moving to a local selling structure will provide more transparency to governments and policy makers around the world who have called for greater visibility over the revenue associated with locally-supported sales in their countries,” Wehner said.

The European Commission is working on legislative proposals, expected in March, to increase taxes on multinational digital companies, who are accused of paying too little in the EU by booking profits in low-tax countries where they have their EU headquarters, like Ireland and Luxembourg.

Among the options the EU executive is considering to raise taxes quickly on tech giants is a levy on revenues from advertising, according to an EU document published in September.

Other short-term options are a tax on turnovers of digital firms and a withholding tax on electronic transactions. Wehner said Facebook would implement the change throughout 2018 and aim to complete it by the first half of 2019.

Facebook’s recent experience in Britain suggests that the move will not lead to the company paying significantly more in tax.

Facebook reported a dramatic rise in revenues and profits reported in the UK for 2016 and had a 2.5 million pound ($3.34 million) tax bill against racking up tax credits in previous years.

However, while the change did lead to an increase in the tax it paid, Facebook still enjoyed a low effective tax rate.

That’s because, even with this measure, Facebook declares relatively little profit in Britain. It reported a profit margin of under 7 percent for 2016 in Britain, compared to a group wide margin of around 45 percent for the year.

Much of the profit linked to U.K. sales is reported elsewhere are a result of inter-group transactions worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

($1 = 0.7491 pounds)
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Spacex Delivery Delayed a Day; 1st Reused Rocket for NASA

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

SpaceX has delayed its latest grocery run for the International Space Station for at least a day.

 

The company now aims to launch its first recycled rocket for NASA on Wednesday.

 

The unmanned Falcon originally flew in June. The Dragon capsule, meanwhile, made a space station shipment in 2015.

 

This will be the first launch in more than a year from this Florida pad, the scene of a rocket explosion in 2016. SpaceX says it needs more time for checks. Liftoff time is 11:24 a.m.

 

As before, SpaceX will attempt to land the first-stage booster back at Cape Canaveral. SpaceX chief Elon Musk is pushing to lower launch costs by reusing the most expensive rocket parts.

 

The Dragon holds nearly 5,000 pounds of supplies, including a barley experiment for Budweiser.

 
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Paris Summit Focused on Boosting Funding for Climate Change Fight

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

French President Emmanuel Macron gathered business leaders and 50 world leaders in Paris for a summit Tuesday focused on boosting funding to fight climate change.

The summit comes two years after nearly 200 nations agreed to the Paris climate accord, which calls for nations to limit greenhouse gas emissions and for rich countries to help developing countries deal with the impacts of climate change.

U.S. President Donald Trump was not among those invited to take part in the conference. Last year, Trump announced was pulling out of the accord saying it “disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries.”

While the U.S. federal government stepped back from the global effort, many of the country’s states and some cities have pledged to move forward with steps consistent with the agreement.

“We have 38 states that have renewable portfolio standard laws,” said former Secretary of State John Kerry, who is attending the summit. “We have 90 cities, the major cities in America, their mayors all committed to meeting Paris. So 80 percent of the population of American is in those 38 states that are committed, and we are going to stay on track.”

The European Union announced a new investment plan aimed at supporting renewable energy production, climate-friendly transportation, sustainable water and sanitation systems, as well as growth in sustainable agriculture.

EU Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Canete also urged contributors to fulfill their commitments to provide $100 billion a year by 2020 to developing nations to help them utilize renewable energy sources instead of fossil fuels that boost carbon levels in the atmosphere.

Also Tuesday, a group of 225 investors launched an initiative to push 100 of the world’s largest greenhouse gas-emitting companies to align their business plans with the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

“In few short months a substantial community of institutional investors have coalesced around this initiative because they want to send an unequivocal signal directly to companies that they will be holding them accountable in order to secure nothing less than bold corporate action to improve governance, curb emissions, and increase disclosure to swiftly address the greatest challenge of our time,” said Andrew Gray, senior manager of investments governance at Australian Super.

Ahead of Tuesday’s summit, Macron awarded 18 scientists, including 13 from the United States, grants to relocate to France and carry out climate change research. He announced the initiative after Trump said the United States was withdrawing from the global accord, and the French leader played on Trump’s campaign slogan by naming his own program “Make Our Planet Great Again.”

“I refuse this double fatality, the one that says that there is this global warming that we can do nothing against and the one that says that this world is forced onto us and we cannot make profound changes,” Macron said. “But what you are showing here tonight, through your commitment, these projects that have been selected through your commitment on a daily basis is the exact opposite. We don’t want climate change and we want to produce and create jobs and do things differently if we decide so. There is no fatality.”
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China Displays Clout at Internet Conference But Some Doubts Remain

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

China made an impressive display of its clout in the digital economy during a three-day internet conference in Beijing last week by pulling together the participation of U.N. agencies, the World Telecom Union and CEOs of major US based IT companies like Google, Apple and Cisco System.

The conference started with a message from Chinese president Xi Jinping who said, “China would never close its doors. They will only be open wider and wider going forward.”

But at the same time, Xi and Wang Huning, one of the ruling Communist Party’s seven most powerful men, emphasized the need for “cyber sovereignty,” which allows individual countries to establish cyber boundaries to protect their respective sovereign interests.

Xi said that besides benefits, “the internet has also brought many new challenges to the sovereignty, security and development interests of nations across the world.”

The Cyber Administration of China, which organized the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen city, was trying to obtain public confirmation about its Internet policies. This was also the first time the annual conference, which started in 2014, had attracted a high-profile attendance from heads of major international companies and agencies.

Analysts are skeptical the conference helped to boost China’s quest to influence rulemaking in the digital world. Many have noted that none of the foreign speakers specifically referred to Internet controls in China, which include bans on U.S. based services like Google, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

“I certainly don’t see (this) as China’s role as a rule setting has expanded. The regulatory bodies and standards actually usually doesn’t apply to China,” Jacob Cooke, CEO of consulting firm, Web Presence in China told VOA. “There is actually a noticeable lack of Chinese presence… And, likewise here there is no international presence in terms of regulatory body or rules and regulations.”

 Apple’s challenge

Apple recently removed hundreds of apps from its app store in China to adhere to the Chinese great firewall of censorship. Apple CEO Tim Cook did not mention that at the conference but said Apple shared the same vision with China on open Internet.

“The theme of this conference—developing a digital economy for openness and shared benefits—is a vision we at Apple share,” Cook said adding, “We are proud to have worked alongside many of our partners in China to help build a community that will join a common future in cyberspace.”

But in the wake of Apple’s decisions to remove APPS and similar moves, questions have surfaced about whether American CEOs are indirectly endorsing China’s censorship methods in their eagerness to obtain a larger slice of the country’s lucrative market.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy specifically targeted the Apple chief for failing to promote freedom of expression. “Apple is clearly a force for good in China, but I also believe it and other tech companies must continue to push back on Chinese suppression of free expression,” Leahy said.

Cook responded with a statement saying, “Each country in the world decides their laws and their regulations, and so your choice is do you participate or stand on the sideline and yell at how things should be…. And my own view, very strongly, is that you show up and you participate, you go in the arena. Because nothing changes from sideline.”

Cooke of Web Presence in China agrees, adding that such questions are not Apple’s responsibility.

“If you want do to business in a country you got to obey rules and laws of that country. That’s with any business. I mean it is not up to you to criticize or change the laws that serve the politicians,” Cooke said.

Robert Elliot Kahn, regarded by many as father of the Internet for co-inventing Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP) views the controversy over China’s internet restrictions in a somewhat different light.

“Governments are going to impose their own rules and regulations; that’s the way the world works,” he told VOA on the sidelines of the conference. “But if we can make it easier for people to build better products and services, to get more services to the public and is supported by people and governments around the world, I think that’s progress for humanity.”

Seeking business

It was apparent from the meeting that western businessmen, including Cook and Google CEO Sudar Pichai, were doing what they can to expand in the Chinese market. Although Google’s browser and Gmail is banned in China and the company left China more than seven years ago, Bloomberg recently reported that the company was making a comeback investing artificial intelligence. 

“A lot of work Google does is to help Chinese companies. Many small and medium-sized businesses in China take advantage of Google to get their products to many other countries outside of China,” Pichai said.

Cook pointed out that Apple’s app store has helped give China’s 1.8 million developers total earnings worth $16.9 billion, which is the highest earned by developers in any country.

In a quote widely used in state media Cook said, “many people see China as a big market, but for us the main attraction is the quality of the people.”

But in the end, analysts note that China’s influence remains limited to the extent of the market it can offer to foreign companies and this is limited by the fact that several giant Chinese companies are jostling to fill every inch of the space.
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Researchers Test Cannabis Drug for Dogs’ Pain, Seizures

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Medical marijuana has been used to treat epilepsy in patients for years, and this month, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said it should be studied and treated like other pain relief drugs. A growing body of scientific evidence is leading the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to do that. Meanwhile, researchers at Colorado State University are examining the benefits of cannabidiol, a non-psychoactive byproduct of marijuana, for treating dogs with epilepsy and arthritis. Faith Lapidus reports.
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