Rehabilitation centers give critically wounded soldiers a second chance at life. Paraplegics and quadriplegics spend their days together in an environment built to aid them in self-reliance. Arash Arabasadi reports on one such facility.
…
Month: December 2017
When you think about fine wine, what countries come to mind? France? Italy? What about China? Well, by 2020, China could become the world’s second-largest wine consumer, behind the United States. That’s according to a report by Vinexpo, a leading wine exhibition. VOA’s Chu Wu visited California’s wine country to hear what winemakers—and drinkers—had to say.
…
Airbus is drawing up contingency plans to phase out production of the world’s largest jetliner, the A380 superjumbo, if it fails to win a key order from Dubai’s Emirates, three people familiar with the matter said.
The moment of truth for the slow-selling airliner looms after just 10 years in service and leaves one of Europe’s most visible international symbols hanging by a thread, despite a major airline investment in new cabins unveiled this month.
“If there is no Emirates deal, Airbus will start the process of ending A380 production,” a person briefed on the plans said.
A supplier added such a move was logical due to weak demand. Airbus and Emirates declined to comment. Airbus also declined to say how many people work on the project.
Gradual shutdown?
Any shutdown is expected to be gradual, allowing Airbus to produce orders it has in hand, mainly from Emirates. It has enough orders to last until early next decade at current production rates, according to a Reuters analysis.
The A380 was developed at a cost of 11 billion euros to carry some 500 people and challenge the reign of the Boeing 747. But demand for these four-engined goliaths has fallen as airlines choose smaller twin-engined models, which are easier to fill and cheaper to maintain.
Emirates, however, has been a strong believer in the A380 and is easily the largest customer with total orders of 142 aircraft, of which it has taken just over 100.
Talks between Airbus and Emirates over a new order for 36 superjumbos worth $16 billion broke down at the Dubai Airshow last month. Negotiations are said to have resumed, but there are no visible signs that a deal is imminent.
British Airways interested
Although airlines such as British Airways have expressed interest in the A380, Airbus is reluctant to keep factories open without the certainty that a bulk Emirates order would provide.
Emirates, for its part, wants a guarantee that Airbus will keep production going for a decade to protect its investment.
A decision to cancel would mark a rupture between Airbus and one of its largest customers and tie Emirates’ future growth to recent Boeing orders.
European sources say that reflects growing American influence in the Gulf under President Donald Trump, but U.S. and UAE industry sources deny politics are involved. There are also potential hurdles to a deal over engine choices and after-sales support.
Safety net
Yet if talks succeed, European sources say there is a glimmer of hope for the double-deck jet, which Airbus says will become more popular with airlines due to congestion.
Singapore Airlines, which first introduced the A380 to passengers in 2007, showcased an $850 million cabin re-design this month and expressed confidence in the model’s future.
Airbus hopes to use an Emirates order to stabilize output and establish a safety net from which to attract A380 sales to other carriers, but has ruled out trying to do this the other way round, industry sources said.
As of the end of November, Airbus had won orders for 317 A380s and delivered 221, leaving 96 unfilled orders. But based on airlines’ intentions or finances, 47 of those are unlikely to be delivered, according to industry sources, which halves the number of jets in play.
30 orders needed
Airbus needs to sell at least another 30 to keep lines open for 10 years and possibly more to justify the price concessions likely to be demanded by any new buyers.
To bridge the gap, Airbus plans to cut output to six a year beyond 2019, from 12 in 2018 and 8 in 2019, even if it means producing at a loss, Reuters recently reported.
Chief Operating Officer Fabrice Bregier confirmed this month Airbus was looking at cutting output to 6-7 a year.
If Airbus does decide to wind down production, some believe Emirates will ask Airbus to deliver the remaining 41 it has on order and then keep most A380s in service as long as possible. Even so, some A380s are likely to be heading for scrap.
…
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Wednesday that the failed launch of a 2.6 billion-ruble ($44.95 million) satellite last month was due to an embarrassing programming error.
Russian space agency Roscosmos said last month that it had lost contact with the newly launched weather satellite — the Meteor-M — after it blasted off from Russia’s new Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East.
Eighteen smaller satellites belonging to scientific, research and commercial companies from Russia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Japan, Canada and Germany were on board the same rocket.
Speaking to Rossiya 24 state TV channel, Rogozin said the failure had been caused by human error.
The rocket carrying the satellites had been programmed with the wrong coordinates, he said, saying it had been given bearings for takeoff from a different cosmodrome — Baikonur — which Moscow leases from Kazakhstan.
“The rocket was really programmed as if it was taking off from Baikonur,” said Rogozin. “They didn’t get the coordinates right.”
The Vostochny spaceport, laid out in the thick taiga forest of the Amur region, is the first civilian rocket launch site in Russia.
In April last year, after delays and massive costs overruns, Russia launched its first rocket from Vostochny, a day after a technical glitch forced an embarrassing postponement of the event in the presence of President Vladimir Putin.
…
When Cyclone Winston pummeled through Fiji last year, the largest storm recorded in the southern hemisphere, Sofia Talei’s taro and cassava crops were destroyed, leaving her livelihood as a farmer uncertain.
“I was so desperate. All the effort we put into it was destroyed after a few hours,” Talei, 33, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
But after the storm came an unexpected surprise: a wealth of financial literacy, business, and agricultural training, which led to Talei this year becoming the first female president of the main fruit and vegetable market in the Fijian capital Suva.
Women’s rights campaigners say disasters can present an opportunity for countries to not only rebuild infrastructure, but also tackle gender inequality, such as helping more women get into work and finding ways to address gender violence.
“Through the leadership training, it’s empowering us women to stand up and fight for women’s rights,” said Talei, a mother of three, standing proudly by her market stall, where she now sells coconuts and fast-growing crops like chilies, eggplants and cabbage which are better suited to unpredictable climates.
For stubborn gender stereotypes in small Pacific islands like Fiji mean women have fewer rights, such as access to services like banking, formal jobs, or even a chance to work, said Aleta Miller from U.N. Women in Fiji, which provides training for market stall vendors like Talei.
Such gender inequality has also led to high rates of violence against women. Two in every three women in the Pacific will experience violence — twice the global average — according to U.N. Women.
“What drives this violence? Fundamentally, it’s harmful social norms: deeply-held attitudes, beliefs, values and behaviors within society about the role of men and women,” said Miller, on the sidelines of a conference run by civil rights group CIVICUS in Suva earlier this month.
“Women hold the same values, in some cases. A woman may agree with a man that he has the right to keep her in the house and to make her report to him where ever she goes,” she said.
‘Change what’s wrong’
When disaster strikes — which is becoming more frequent and intense due to climate change — women’s vulnerabilities are even more exposed, said researcher Virginie Le Masson from London-based think tank Overseas Development Institute (ODI).
Some women and girls are forced to sell sex to survive, and some are raped due to the lack of shelter after disasters such as cyclones, earthquakes or floods.
“It’s a combination of existing inequality and violence against women and girls, and the failure of protective systems after a disaster,” said Le Masson. “But climate change is not the reason why women have been discriminated against for the last centuries.”
Le Masson said disasters can present an opportunity for women.
“This is an opportunity to change what is wrong. [After a disaster] we need everyone in the community to contribute to rebuild the economy and that’s an opportunity for women to take part,” she said.
Only 40 percent of Fijian women have formal work, compared to 80 percent of men, according to the International Women’s Development Agency.
U.N. Women’s Miller said providing skills training for women before and after a disaster is one way to help challenge ingrained gender stereotypes.
“It’s more than money and profit, it’s also about her agency [and] having more of a voice,” said Miller.
“We have many women telling us, ‘I never saw myself as a business woman. This is who I am and this is my future,'” she said.
…
The environmental group Sea Shepherd said fishermen fired 25 shots at one of its night-vision drones in Mexico’s Gulf of California, bringing it down.
Various drones have been employed to patrol the Gulf, also known as the Sea of Cortez, to combat illegal fishing and save the critically endangered vaquita marina, the world’s smallest porpoise.
Poachers often go out at night to set nets for totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder is prized in China. But vaquitas often get caught in totoaba nets, causing the population to plunge to less than 30.
Sea Shepherd has been the target of demonstrations by fishermen in the past, but said the Christmas Eve shooting represented “a new level of violence.”
The group said Tuesday that its drone had located four small boats illegally fishing for totoaba.
Men on three of the boats were observed firing at the device until its camera shut off.
The drone was then listed as “disconnected,” indicating it went down.
In the past, fishermen have thrown rocks and bricks at drones, staged demonstrations demanding that Sea Shepherd boats be expelled, burned vehicles and patrol boats, and beat inspectors from the office of environmental protection, but this is the first time they fired guns.
In other parts of the world, Sea Shepherd vessels have rammed into whaling ships to deter illegal activities.
But in the Gulf, the group has peacefully patrolled the waters, looking for vaquitas dead or alive and gill nets, which it removes.
The patrol effort has been welcomed by the Mexican government, which has had a difficult time enforcing a ban on gill net fishing because fishermen use fast boats, leading vessels on hours-long chases.
Sometimes, pickup trucks drop boat trailers onto beaches and haul off small fishing crafts before authorities arrive.
…
Russian ballet and its dancers are famous the world over and inspire many Russians to pursue a career in the classical dance. But to break into ballet, dancers have to struggle through a brutal training regime and gender stereotypes. VOA Moscow videographer Ricardo Marquina Montanana talked to an aspiring ballerina and a successful ballet dancer whose father wanted him to follow in his footsteps and be a boxer.
…
The global fight over land and resources is getting increasingly bloody and the race for control of valuable assets is expanding from forests and indigenous territories to the seas, space and databanks.
Here are five hotspots for property rights in 2018:
1. Rising violence: From Peru to the Philippines, land rights defenders are under increasing threat of harassment and attack from governments and corporations.
At least 208 people have been killed so far this year defending their homes, lands and forests from mining, dams and agricultural projects, advocacy group Frontline Defenders says.
The tally has exceeded that of 2016, which was already the deadliest year on record, and “it is likely that we will see numbers continue to rise”, a spokeswoman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
2. Demand for affordable housing: Governments are under increasing pressure to recognize the right to housing, as Smart Cities projects and rapid gentrification push more people on to the streets, from Mumbai to Rio de Janeiro.
India has committed to providing Housing for All by 2022, while Canada’s recognition of housing as a fundamental right could help eliminate homelessness in the country.
“We need our governments to respond to this crisis and recognize that homelessness is a matter of life and death and dignity,” said Leilani Farha, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to housing.
3. Takeover of public lands: From the shrinking of wilderness national monuments in Utah to the felling of rainforests for palm plantations in Indonesia, public lands risk being rescinded or resized by governments in favor of business interests.
Governments are also likely to be hit by more lawsuits from indigenous communities fighting to protect their lands, as well as the environment.
4. Fight over space and sea: A race to explore and extract resources from the moon, asteroids and other celestial bodies is underway, with China, Luxembourg, the United States and others vying for materials ranging from ice to precious metals.
The latest space race targets a multi-trillion dollar industry.
Expect more debate over the 50-year-old U.N. Outer Space Treaty, which declares “the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind.”
On Earth, the fight over the seas is intensifying, particularly in the Arctic. Melting ice caps have triggered a fierce contest between energy companies in the United States, Russia, Canada, and Norway over drilling rights.
5. Debate over data: As more countries move towards digital citizen IDs, there are growing concerns about privacy and safety of the data, the ethics of biometrics, and the misuse of data for profiling or increased surveillance.
Campaigners are pushing for “informational privacy” to be part of the right to privacy, and for governments to treat the right to data as an inalienable right, like the right to dignity.
…
There’s a good chance that 2017 will go down in the history of medicine as a year when genetic engineering finally started moving from research labs to clinics. Several successful stories coming from different parts of the world promise that hereditary diseases and cancers may soon be conquered. VOA’s George Putic looks back at a few of these cases.
…
In this digital age, meals are now shared over the internet. With social media users looking for dishes that are both ready to snap and to eat, restaurateurs across the globe are taking advantage, styling their creations to be camera ready. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni has more.
…
When it comes to autonomous vehicles, putting them in the relatively open skies may be easier than putting them on crowded roads. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports on how one branch of the military is investigating the use of autonomous helicopters.
…
There was no way Jose Ramon Garcia, a food transporter in Venezuela, could afford new tires for his van at $350 each.
Whether he opted to pay in U.S. currency or in the devalued local bolivar currency at the equivalent black market price, Garcia would have had to save up for years.
Though used to expensive repairs, this one was too much and put him out of business. “Repairs cost an arm and a leg in Venezuela,” said the now-unemployed 42-year-old Garcia, who has a wife and two children to support in the southern city of Guayana. “There’s no point keeping bolivars.”
For a decade and a half, strict exchange controls have severely limited access to dollars. A black market in hard currency has spread in response, and as once-sky-high oil revenue runs dry, Venezuela’s economy is in free-fall.
The practice adopted by gourmet and design stores in Caracas over the last couple of years to charge in dollars to a select group of expatriates or Venezuelans with access to greenbacks is fast spreading.
Food sellers, dental and medical clinics, and others are starting to charge in dollars or their black market equivalent – putting many basic goods and services out of reach for a large number of Venezuelans.
According to the opposition-led National Assembly, November’s rise in prices topped academics’ traditional benchmark for hyperinflation of more than 50 percent a month – and could end the year at 2,000 percent. The government has not published inflation data for more than a year.
“I can’t think in bolivars anymore, because you have to give a different price every hour,” said Yoselin Aguirre, 27, who makes and sells jewelry in the Paraguana peninsula and has recently pegged prices to the dollar. “To survive, you have to dollarize.”
The socialist government of the late president Hugo Chavez in 2003 brought in the strict controls in order to curb capital flight, as the wealthy sought to move money out of Venezuela after a coup attempt and major oil strike the previous year.
Oil revenue was initially able to bolster artificial exchange rates, though the black market grew and now is becoming unmanageable for the government.
Trim the Tree With Bolivars
President Nicolas Maduro has maintained his predecessor’s policies on capital controls. Yet, the spread between the strongest official rate, of some 10 bolivars per dollar, and the black market rate, of around 110,000 per dollar, is now huge.
While sellers see a shift to hard currency as necessary, buyers sometimes blame them for speculating.
Rafael Vetencourt, 55, a steel worker in Ciudad Guayana, needed a prostate operation priced at $250.
“We don’t earn in dollars. It’s abusive to charge in dollars!” said Vetencourt, who had to decimate his savings to pay for the surgery.
In just one year, Venezuela’s currency has weakened 97.5 percent against the greenback, meaning $1,000 of local currency purchased then would be worth just $25 now.
Maduro blames black market rate-publishing websites such as DolarToday for inflating the numbers, part of an “economic war” he says is designed by the opposition and Washington to topple him.
On Venezuela’s borders with Brazil and Colombia, the prices of imported oil, eggs and wheat flour vary daily in line with the black market price for bolivars.
In an upscale Caracas market, cheese-filled arepas, the traditional breakfast made with corn flour, increased 65 percent in price in just two weeks, according to tracking by Reuters reporters. In the same period, a kilogram of ham jumped a whopping 171 percent.
The runaway prices have dampened Christmas celebrations, which this season were characterized by shortages of pine trees and toys, as well as meat, chicken and cornmeal for the preparation of typical dishes.
In one grim festive joke, a Christmas tree in Maracaibo, the country’s oil capital and second city, was decorated with virtually worthless low-denomination bolivar bills.
Most Venezuelans, earning just $5 a month at the black market rate, are nowhere near being able to save hard currency.
“How do I do it? I earn in bolivars and have no way to buy foreign currency,” said Cristina Centeno, a 31-year-old teacher who, like many, was seeking remote work online before Christmas in order to bring in some hard currency.
…
Kenneth Branagh is teasing the return of “old friends” in his planned sequel to “Murder on the Orient Express.”
Branagh is expected to both direct and reprise his role as the fancifully mustachioed lead character Detective Hercule Poirot in “Death on the Nile,” another mystery based on an Agatha Christie novel, which screenwriter Michael Green will return to adapt.
Branagh says he’s excited to gather an ensemble cast that could possibly include bringing back some “old friends” to explore “primal human emotions” like “obsessive love and jealousy and sex” that make for a “very dangerous atmosphere.”
The tense whodunit “Murder on the Orient Express” featured an all-star cast including Johnny Depp, Daisy Ridley, Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz and Michelle Pfeiffer. It was a global hit after its release in early November. Branagh says he was glad to see audiences responding to his quirky portrayal of Poirot and looks forward to seeing how that will evolve in the sequel.
“One of the things that I liked – really loved doing here that the audience responded to was that Hercule Poirot, for all his intellectual power, got dragged into it, got dragged into feeling it. And I think it’s a hell of a trip, that trip down the Nile. So I think it would be great to see how he, how his heart, responds to that kind of intensity,” he said.
Christie’s 1937 novel, “Death on the Nile,” was previously adapted into a 1978 film starring Peter Ustinov, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow and Maggie Smith.
With a wealth of source material to draw from, Branagh also endorses the idea of a Poirot-slash-Christie “cinematic universe” – the popular term for a series of interlocking films that bring various characters together.
“I think there are possibilities, aren’t there? With 66 books and short stories and plays, she – and she often brings people together in her own books actually, so innately – she enjoyed that,” he says. “You feel as though there is a world – just like with Dickens, there’s a complete world that she’s created – certain kinds of characters who live in her world – that I think has real possibilities.”
However, Branagh says he hasn’t exactly floated that idea with any of the brass at 20th Century Fox.
“I bet they’ve been thinking about it though,” he says.
“Murder on the Orient Express” will be released on home video in the coming months. “Death on the Nile” is in the early stages of pre-production.
…
Starfish are making a comeback on the U.S. West Coast, four years after a mysterious syndrome killed millions of them.
From 2013 to 2014, Sea Star Wasting Syndrome hit sea stars from British Columbia to Mexico. The starfish would develop lesions and then disintegrate, their arms turning into blobs of goo.
The cause is unclear but researchers say it may be a virus.
Now, starfish are rebounding. The Orange County Register says sea stars are being spotted in Southern California tide pools and elsewhere.
Kaitlin Magliano of the Crystal Cove Conservancy says four adult starfish were recently spotted at Newport Beach. She calls them a treasure and says it’s good to see the stars surviving and thriving.
…
Eight Eastern U.S. states are suing the Environmental Protection Agency, demanding that it order tougher controls on some Midwestern states over air pollution blowing eastward.
New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is leading the lawsuit, saying the Trump administration had failed to impose congressionally mandated anti-pollution standards on parts of the Midwest.
“Millions of New Yorkers are breathing unhealthy air as smog pollution continues to pour in from other states,” Schneiderman said.
The other that are part of the lawsuit are Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. They want the courts to overturn the EPA’s decision to exclude nine mostly Midwestern states from what is called the Ozone Transport Region.
States within the region, established under the Clean Air Act, are required to control emissions from coal plants and other sources.
EPA chief Scott Pruitt declined to add those states to the region by an October deadline.
The EPA said it could not comment on outstanding legal matters.
…
The sauvignon blanc boasts brassy, citrus notes, but with one whiff, it’s apparent this is no normal Sonoma County wine. It’s infused with THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that provides the high.
Move over, pot brownies. The world’s largest legal recreational marijuana market kicks off Monday in California, and the trendsetting state is set to ignite the cannabis culinary scene.
Chefs and investors have been teaming up to offer an eye-boggling array of cannabis-infused food and beverages, weed-pairing supper clubs and other extravagant pot-to-plate events in preparation for legalization come Jan. 1.
Legal pot in states like Oregon, Washington and Colorado and California’s longstanding medical marijuana market already spurred a cannabis-foodie movement with everything from olive oil to heirloom tomato bisques infused with the drug.
Cannabis-laced dinners with celebrity chefs at private parties have flourished across Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego in recent years, but a medical marijuana card was required to attend.
With that requirement gone, the edibles market is expected to boom, though manufacturers face a host of regulations, and doctors fear the products could increase emergency room visits and entice youth. Marijuana industry analysts predict edibles for the recreational marijuana market will top $100 million in sales in 2018.
“Californian’s culinary expertise is far more refined from college kids making pot brownies in a dorm,” said John Kagia of Frontier Data, a cannabis market research firm.
Expect a slew of vegan and gluten-free choices and low-dose snacks from trail mixes to chocolates. And they may well be served at a gym or Pilates studio.
“This is the dawn of the Amsterdam-style cafe in the U.S.,” Kagia said. “We expect to see spaces that are targeted to cannabis consumers that capitalize on the arts and entertainment offerings of California and really create unique and elevated experiences.”
That includes ethnic options in a state with the largest immigrant population in the U.S.
“Now you see all kinds of cuisines,” said Cristina Espiritu of the 420 Foodie Club, which has promoted cannabis food events in Southern California that have included everything from Mediterranean dishes to Filipino specialties. “There’s going to be infused tacos, infused burritos. I think because of the diversity and creativity in California, this is going to explode.”
But Espiritu worries regulations could make certain aspects of the culinary experience accessible only to the elite in places like Beverly Hills.
Kitchens for those making edibles to sell must be licensed. And organizers must pay $5,000 a year for a license to host up to 10 events, and depending on the size, they may be required to hold them at a fairground. Cities can pose additional fees and ban an event altogether.
Regulations prohibit manufacturers from producing cannabis products for retail sale that include perishable items that could pose a health risk, such as dairy, seafood, fresh meat, or food or beverages appealing to children. It’s still unclear if those rules would apply to a chef-hosted dinner or cooking class that people have paid for.
Edible products must be produced in serving sizes with no more than 10 milligrams of THC and no more than 100 milligrams of THC for the total package.
Drug policy expert and Stanford Law School professor Robert J. MacCoun said the regulations are too lax. Edibles already being sold in the medical marijuana industry vary widely in their potency, so people get more stoned than they planned and can end up in emergency rooms.
The bright packages appeal to children, who often are too young to read warning labels, MacCoun said. He thinks edibles should be restricted to plain brown or white packaging.
“Everyone sees this as a kind of new gold rush in the way that it will make a lot of money, but I think we need to be more careful about how this rolls out,” he said.
Many see California’s recreational marijuana business mirroring its wine industry, with people seeking weed pairings, cannabis farm tours and products made from organic, local plants.
Rebel Coast Winery’s THC-infused sauvignon blanc is made from Sonoma County grapes, but the alcohol is removed in compliance with regulations that prohibit mixing pot with alcohol.
It smells like marijuana, meeting another requirement that it not be confused with a food or beverage that does not contain pot.
Founder Alex Howe is planning high-end dinner parties in Los Angeles in early 2018 to debut the $59.99 bottle of wine. Each bottle contains 16 milligrams of THC, and the company says on average, people feel the effects in under 15 minutes.
“We really wanted to mimic that ritual of opening a bottle of wine at dinner, or at a party with friends or while watching a movie, which is something so familiar to people, especially in California,” he said.
…
Vietnam has unveiled a new, 10,000-strong military cyberwarfare unit to counter “wrong” views on the Internet, media reported, amid a widening crackdown on critics of the one-party state.
The cyber unit, named Force 47, is already in operation in several sectors, Tuoi Tre newspaper quoted Lieutenant General Nguyen Trong Nghia, deputy head of the military’s political department, as saying at a conference of the Central Propaganda Department on Monday in the commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City.
“In every hour, minute and second we must be ready to fight proactively against the wrong views,” the paper quoted the general as saying.
Communist-ruled Vietnam has stepped up attempts to tame the internet, calling for closer watch over social networks and for the removal of content that it deems offensive, but there has been little sign of it silencing criticism when the companies providing the platforms are global.
Its neighbor China, in contrast, allows only local internet companies operating under strict rules.
The number of staff compares with the 6,000 reportedly employed by North Korea. However, the general’s comments suggest its force may be focused largely on domestic internet users, whereas North Korea is internationally focused because the internet is not available to the public at large.
‘Bad and dangerous content’
In August, Vietnam’s president said the country needed to pay greater attention to controlling “news sites and blogs with bad and dangerous content.”
Vietnam, one of the top 10 countries for Facebook users by numbers, has also drafted an internet security bill asking for local placement of Facebook and Google servers, but the bill has been the subject of heated debate at the National Assembly and is still pending assembly approval.
Cybersecurity firm FireEye Inc. said Vietnam had “built up considerable cyberespionage capabilities in a region with relatively weak defenses.”
“Vietnam is certainly not alone. FireEye has observed a proliferation in offensive capabilities. … This proliferation has implications for many parties, including governments, journalists, activists and even multinational firms,” a spokesman at FireEye, who requested anonymity, told Reuters.
“Cyberespionage is increasingly attractive to nation states, in part because it can provide access to a significant amount of information with a modest investment, plausible deniability and limited risk,” he added.
Vietnam denies such charges.
Vietnam has in recent months stepped up measures to silence critics. A court last month jailed a blogger for seven years for “conducting propaganda against the state.”
In a separate, similar case last month, a court upheld a 10-year jail sentence for a prominent blogger.
…
Earle Naval Weapons Station, where the Navy loads some of America’s most sophisticated weapons onto warships, suffered $50 million worth of damage in Superstorm Sandy. Now the naval pier is fortifying itself with some decidedly low-tech protection: oysters.
The facility has allowed an environmental group to plant nearly a mile of oyster reefs about a quarter-mile off its shoreline to serve as a natural buffer to storm-driven wave damage.
Other military bases are enlisting the help of oysters, too. In June, environmental groups and airmen established a reef in the waters of Elgin Air Force Base Reservation in Florida, and more are planned nearby. Oysters also help protect Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia.
Three oyster reefs protect the USS Laffey museum in South Carolina. And military installations in Alabama and North Carolina have dispatched their enlisted personnel to help build oyster reefs in off-base coastal sites.
They are among hundreds of places around the U.S. and the world where oyster reefs are being planted primarily as storm-protection measures. And a bill just introduced in Congress would give coastal communities $100 million over the next five years to create “living shorelines” that include oyster reefs.
“Having a hardened structure like that oyster reef will absorb some of that wave energy,” said Earle spokesman Bill Addison. “All the pipes and cables that are on the pier now, all of that was washed away and had to be rebuilt. And there was a lot of flooding that came into the base. Will this protect us against all of that? No, but it will do a significant amount of good to protect the base and the complex and our surrounding communities.”
The NY/NJ Baykeeper group has been experimenting with oysters at the Navy pier since 2011, originally as a way to see if the shellfish, through their natural filtering ability, might help improve water quality in the murky Raritan Bay. (They did somewhat.)
In summer 2016, the group planted the oyster reef primarily as a storm protection measure — a trend that has taken hold around the world within the past decade or so, according to Bryan DeAngelis, a program coordinator for The Nature Conservancy in Rhode Island. Every coastal state in America is using oyster reefs as either a combination storm-protection or a water improvement project, or both.
In addition to cleaning the water, the oyster reefs help blunt the force of incoming waves.
“They are nice speed bumps,” said Meredith Comi, an official with the Baykeeper group.
Environmentalists say “living shorelines” including oyster colonies are far preferable to, and cheaper than, armoring the coast with steel seas walls or wooden bulkheads that invariably accelerate erosion of the sand in front of such manmade structures.
“Waves are affected by the roughness of the bottom,” said Boze Hancock, a marine restoration scientist with The Nature Conservancy who has studied and participated in oyster projects around the world. “Picture a wave trying to roll over a huge sponge, compared to one rolling over an asphalt parking lot. The `sponge,’ or rough, uneven oyster reef, sucks the energy out of the wave as it rolls toward the shore.”
U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, recently introduced The Living Shorelines Act, which would make coastal communities eligible for $100 million over five years in federal grants for oyster reefs and wetlands plants. Its prospects remain uncertain in the Republican-controlled Congress.
In most spots, the oysters are designed not to be harvested and eaten. But in other places, including New Jersey, the oysters have been planted in polluted waterways where shellfish harvesting is prohibited, leading to concerns about poachers stealing them and sickening customers.
Such a dispute forced Baykeeper to rip out an oyster reef it planted a few miles from the Navy pier and relocate the shellfish to waters near the pier that are patrolled by gun-toting boats.
…