Month: January 2018

Brazilian Miner Vale Ordered to Repair Environmental Damage

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

A Brazilian court on Monday ordered the world’s largest iron ore miner Vale SA to repair environmental damages its operations caused in land belonging to a community of descendants of escaped slaves in northern Brazil.

Federal prosecutors announced the ruling in a statement that said the electricity transmission lines and a bauxite pipeline damaged soil and silted up rivers in the Moju “quilombola” territory in the northeast of  Pará state.

The court also ordered Vale to set up a project to generate income for the 788 families affected by the company’s operations and compensate them with cash until it was implemented.

No value was given for the cost of the reparations Vale must pay. The Rio de Janeiro-based company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a separate case, federal prosecutors recommended the suspension of Vale’s dredging operations in the Sepetiba Bay in Rio de Janeiro state after a virus killed 200 gray porpoises.

Vale said it had not been officially informed about the recommendation. It said in a statement that all its operations in the bay where it has a terminal are duly licensed and monitored by the authorities.
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Scientists: Conflict in Ukraine Escalated Spread of HIV

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Fighting in Ukraine that erupted in 2014 escalated the spread of HIV throughout the country as millions of infected people were uprooted by violence, a study published Monday found.

Conflict-affected areas such as Donetsk and Luhansk, two large cities in the east of Ukraine, were the main exporters of the HIV virus to other parts of the country such as Kyiv and Odessa, the report found.

Ukraine has among the highest HIV rates in Europe, with an estimated 220,000 infected in a country of about 45 million.

An international team of scientists led by Oxford University and Public Health England analyzed viral migration patterns and found a correlation between the war-related movement of 1.7 million people and the spread of HIV.

“The war changed a lot of things in Ukraine and the HIV epidemic is one of them,” said lead author Tetyana Vasylyeva of Oxford University’s Zoology department.

“When we conducted our analysis, we were able to show that the viral spread from the East to the rest of the country had been intensified after the war.”

The HIV epidemic has shifted from being associated with drug injections in the 1990s to most new infections now being spread by sexual transmission, Vasylyeva told Reuters.

Half of HIV-infected people in Ukraine are unaware of their infection status and around 40 percent of newly diagnosed people are in the later stages of the disease, she added.

Almost 37 million people worldwide have the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS.

Since the first cases of HIV were reported more than 35 years ago, 35 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses, according to the United Nations AIDS program (UNAIDS), which is seeking to end the public health threat by 2030, in line with the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.

A Russia-backed insurgency erupted in Ukraine’s industrialized east in 2014 and the bloodshed has continued despite a cease-fire deal brokered by Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine.

More than 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict, with casualties reported on a near-daily basis.

Russia denies accusations from Ukraine and NATO that it supports the rebels with troops and weapons.

The health study also found an alarmingly high resistance, compared to the rest of Europe, to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) a common treatment for HIV, said senior author and medical virologist, Gkikas Magiorkinis.

“It’s a worrying development and the policymakers should be alerted because it’s going to be very, very difficult to use it [PrEP] in the near future in Ukraine,” Magiorkinis told Reuters.

Ukraine must scale-up interventions to prevent further transmissions of HIV, and seek international support to prevent a new public health tragedy, he said.
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America Last? EU Says Trump Losing on Trade

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

The European Union’s trade tsar has no idea what Donald Trump will tell his audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos next week, but she is clear what the EU’s message to the U.S. president will be.

America is shooting itself in the foot by withdrawing from global leadership on trade, Cecilia Malmstrom, the 49-year-old Swede who has served as Europe’s trade commissioner for the past three years, told Reuters.

Under Malmstrom’s direction, the EU has juggled a dizzying array of trade talks over the past year. In July it clinched a preliminary deal with Japan. And early this year it hopes to seal agreements with Mexico and the Latin American Mercosur bloc.

The retreat of the United States under Trump has played a big role in this push, Malmstrom says. Countries around the world are desperate for new trading partners, and the EU, confident again after years of economic crisis and Britain’s vote in 2016 to leave the bloc, has eagerly filled the gap.

“We have shown that we have overcome that acute crisis, so many countries are turning to Europe for leadership and for partnership,” said Malmstrom, who will also be in Davos.

“With other countries we are now setting the standards and that is also why it is bad for the U.S. to withdraw because there are standards set now and they will be global.”

Since coming into office one year ago on a promise to put America first, Trump has pulled Washington out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), threatened to scrap the 90s-era North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and to introduce steel tariffs that could hit European allies as well as China.

But Malmstrom singled out Washington’s confrontational stance towards the World Trade Organization (WTO) as particularly worrying.

The Trump administration has blocked the appointment of judges to a WTO body that rules on trade disputes. If the United States does not shift its stance, that body could cease to function altogether, Malmstrom said.

She described a WTO ministerial meeting in December as a “disgrace.” The meeting in Buenos Aires failed to reach any agreements, such as on ending fishing subsidies, and descended into acrimony, in the face of stinging criticism from the United States.

“We want American leadership in the world. They shouldn’t disengage,” Malmstrom said.

Trump will be the headliner in Davos one year after Chinese President Xi Jinping traveled to the ski resort in the Swiss Alps and signalled a readiness to assume a leadership role in free trade created by an inward-looking Washington.

Malmstrom described the Xi speech as “brilliant” in terms of content and timing – just three days before Trump’s inauguration.

But she said there had been no change in China’s behavior towards Europe since then. If anything, the hurdles to European investment in China have grown.

The EU seemed to have gained a free trade ally in the world’s second largest economy, but Malmstrom said Beijing had not backed up Xi’s speech with action.

“Maybe he really believes in these things, but we haven’t seen it yet in China,” she said. “We want to work in China and we want China to invest here, but the level playing field is not there. We haven’t seen anything concrete in our trade relationship.”
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UN: Indigenous Women Are ‘Seed Guardians’ in Latin America Hunger Fight

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Indigenous women in Latin America must be at the center of efforts to adapt agriculture to deal with the threat of climate change and help tackle hunger and poverty, said a top U.N. food official.

Jose Graziano da Silva, head of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said women were too often left out of development schemes, despite expert knowledge of the environment passed down through generations.

“They have fundamental roles in the spiritual, social and family arenas and are seed guardians — critical carriers of specialized knowledge,” Graziano da Silva told a Mexico City forum.

“Their social and economic empowerment is … a necessary condition to eradicate hunger and malnutrition in their communities,” he said, according to a statement.

Poor health care, malnutrition and illiteracy are other issues faced by indigenous women who generally have little access to the political arena, he said.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, indigenous people comprise 15 percent of those affected by hunger and extreme poverty, despite making up just 8 percent of the population in the region where 45 million identify as indigenous.

Women suffer the most. Wage levels for indigenous women in the region are often four times less than those for men, said the United Nations’ food agency.

Indigenous women can play a key role in adapting agriculture and diet to cope with climate change, said the FAO, with traditional indigenous land comprising 22 percent the world’s territory and 80 percent of its biodiversity.

The organization said it would ramp up projects to boost indigenous women’s leadership in countries including Bolivia, Paraguay, India and the Philippines this year.

In Mexico, traditional healer and Nahua speaker Maria de Jesus Patricio Martinez is a candidate in July’s election, the first indigenous woman to run for the country’s presidency.
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Chinese Automaker Plans to Enter US Market in 2019

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

A Chinese automaker is turning its attention west, vowing to sell cars to Americans by the fourth quarter of 2019.

GAC Motor on Monday unveiled two models at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit: a concept gull-wing compact electric SUV called the Enverge and a GA4 midsize sedan that will go on sale in China later this year.

Exactly how or when Chinese cars will enter the U.S. market is a puzzle. GAC says it is negotiating with partner Fiat Chrysler about possible distribution of vehicles. The company says it already has two research centers and a design center in the U.S.

Davis Cole, an industry expert and chairman of the AutoHarvest Foundation in Detroit, told VOA that Americans appear ready for Chinese-made cars. He noted that General Motors already sells its China-produced Buick Envision in the United States.

He said that initially the quality of Chinese-made cars was “not up to what most people would expect here … but every indication is they are becoming of much, much better quality and my guess is that as we look to the future, quality differences will probably disappear.”

If the U.S. automakers want to keep their status and edge in the industry, he said, they have no choice but to work “with all these emerging markets so that you’re not just looking at a competitor but a partner.” As an example, he noted that Buick sells “about three times as many vehicles in China as they sell here. And that tells you we are in a brave new world.”

An interesting aside to the tale of Chinese cars on American soil is the name under which GAC markets its vehicles in China — Trumpchi.

“It will be fascinating, particularly with the criticism the president had of China and their vehicles … that just adds to the drama,” Cole said.

Trumpchi is already popular in China. In 2017, GAC sold 500,000 vehicles, up 37 percent from the year before.

The company has said the name has no connection to U.S. President Donald Trump. It has been in use by GAC since 2010.
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Game of Chicken: GM Bets on Mexican-made Pickup Trucks

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

General Motors’s assembly plant in Silao, a city in Mexico’s automotive heartland, cranked out more than 400,000 highly profitable, large pickup trucks last year, and is critical to the launch of a new generation of Chevrolet Silverado trucks later this year.

Now, GM’s Silao factory, and the profit it generates, are at risk.

If U.S. President Donald Trump follows up on threats to dump the North American Free Trade Agreement, pickup trucks built at Silao and shipped to the United States could be hit with a 25 percent tariff, known in the auto industry as the “chicken tax.”

The truck tariff’s origins go back to a 1960s trade spat between the United States and Germany over exports of U.S.-grown chickens. It protected profit for Detroit’s automakers long after its origins faded from memory. Now, the chicken tax could ruffle the feathers of GM’s pickup-truck profitability. It could also potentially jeopardize thousands of jobs on both sides of the border and billions of dollars in investment for automakers.

GM in recent weeks inaugurated a new production line for a 10-speed transmission in the central Mexican city of Silao, and late last year began hiring 600 new staff there, sources said, effectively doubling down on one of the most lucrative offshore production categories for U.S. auto companies.

People familiar with GM’s plans told Reuters the company will shift production of a small number of heavy-duty versions of the next-generation Silverado and Sierra to a plant in Flint, Michigan.

GM Chief Executive Mary Barra did not directly answer when asked on Saturday if the company is considering pulling pickup truck production out of Mexico. “We’re going to continue to work constructively to get a modernized NAFTA agreement,” she said.

Last week, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV said it will move production of heavy-duty Ram pickups out of Mexico to Michigan by 2020.

At an event on Saturday to promote the 2019 Silverado, GM executives said Mexico is an important part of the automaker’s manufacturing “footprint” in North America.

“The truck we build in Mexico, the engines come from the U.S.,” GM North America chief Alan Batey told reporters. “Everything is interlinked.”

A failed NAFTA is a lose-lose

NAFTA has helped transform Guanajuato state, where Silao is located, since the trade pact was signed in 1994 with some $18 billion in investments in the auto sector. Silao’s industrial park bustles with workers at the dozens of sparkling new offices of automakers, suppliers and service providers from an array of countries, including Japan, Germany, the United States and Mexico.

Nearly 200,000 direct and indirect jobs depend on the automotive sector in Guanajuato. An estimated 46 percent of Mexico’s pickup trucks are produced in the region.

GM’s Silao manufacturing complex is part of a web of factories owned by GM and its suppliers that stretches across Canada, the United States and Mexico. It is one of three main assembly plants for the next generation of GM’s large pickups and sport utility vehicles, including plants in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Flint, Michigan.

Engines for trucks made in Silao come from GM factories in Flint; Spring Hill, Tennessee; and Tonawanda, New York. U.S. factories supply fuel systems and other components. In total, GM said it has more than 5,000 employees in U.S. plants with jobs tied to production in Silao.

In North America, GM’s operations are primarily in the United States. It has four manufacturing plants in Mexico, and 40 in the United States.

The automaker’s plans to build the next generation of Silverado pickups and related components in Mexico are too far along to reverse course in the near term without losing money, experts and company officials said.

GM’s global purchasing chief, Steve Kiefer, told Reuters that suppliers for the pickup truck program have also made investments based on production that crosses the U.S-Mexico border.

“The installed capacity is such that it would be prohibitive to make huge changes to this,” Kiefer said.

U.S., Canadian and Mexican officials are scheduled to meet in Montreal from Jan. 23 to 28 for the sixth and penultimate round of talks to update N“Surely the (NAFTA) negotiations will be positive. We don’t believe this will lead to a destructive situation because it would be a lose-lose,” said Alfredo Arzola, head of Guanajuato’s automotive cluster.

During the first 10 months of 2017 GM, Fiat Chrysler, Nissan Motor Co Ltd and Toyota Motor Corp exported nearly 700,000 pickup trucks from Mexico, mostly to the United States, according to data from the Mexican Auto Industry Association (AMIA).

GM executives emphasized that 80 percent of the pickups it sells in the United States are U.S.-made.

Flexible

In the event of a NAFTA collapse carmakers could eventually switch out production of pickup trucks to the United States and bring compact car and sport utility vehicle production to Mexico, experts and industry officials said.

“GM has certain flexibility … to go back and only produce SUVs like the Suburban,” said a Mexican official.

Under that scenario Mexican exports of SUVs to the United States would avoid the steep chicken tax and would be subject to a tariff of only 2.5 percent, barring an agreement to a different levy.

Fiat Chrysler said it will use the Mexican plant that now builds pickups to assemble a commercial vehicle aimed at global markets, taking advantage of Mexican free trade deals.

 
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France’s Deneuve Apologizes to Sex Assault Victims, Stands by Letter

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Actress Catherine Deneuve apologized to victims of sexual assault who were offended by a column denouncing “puritanism” she signed following the Harvey Weinstein scandal, but maintained her reservations about the #MeToo campaign.

Deneuve and 99 other French women signed a column in Le Monde last week saying the campaign, which saw millions of women take to social media to share sexual harassment stories, had gone too far and was fueled by a “hatred of men.”

In a letter in Liberation newspaper on Monday, Deneuve stood by the statement that sparked an international outcry, but distanced herself from comments made by other signatories.

In particular, she referred, without naming her, to former radio presenter Brigitte Lahaie, who during a debate on French TV said women could “orgasm during a rape.”

“I’m a free woman and always will be,” Deneuve said. “I send my sisterly regards to all the victims of abject acts who would have felt attacked by this column in Le Monde, and it is to them, and them only, that I offer my apologies.”

“Saying on a TV channel that you can orgasm during a rape is worse than spitting in the face of all those who suffered from this crime,” she said.

But the 74-year-old actress said she did not like the “media lynching” and “climate of censorship” she said was unleashed by the #metoo campaign, known in France as #balancetonporc or “rat out your abuser.”

“An actor can be digitally removed from a movie, the director of a great New York institution can be forced to resign for groping somebody’s buttocks 30 years ago with no other form of trial,” she said.

“I don’t like this pack mentality, all too common these days,” she added.
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Scientists: Cooperation to Curb Asia’s Climate Risks Still Too Rare

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

When heavy monsoon rains triggered unprecedented flooding last August in the area around western Nepal’s Babai and West Rapti rivers, the swollen waters crossed the border into India within a few hours.

But swift warnings from Nepali authorities to the downriver Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh allowed officials there to move people to safety, Indian officials say.

Without that advice from Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, “there would have been no possibility for the Indian authorities to ensure timely evacuation of the people, which [would have] otherwise led to huge loss of lives,” said Anand Sharma of the Indian Meteorological Department.

As climate change increases the risk of flooding, glacial lake outbursts and cyclones, as well as droughts and heat waves, experts say that sharing information across borders is crucial to save lives and ensure economic stability in Asia’s Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region.

The region, which stretches from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east, includes over 1.3 billion people in eight countries.

They are connected by 10 river basins, including the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Salween, Mekong and Yangtse, and some of the world’s largest mountain ranges, the Karakoram, Hindu Kush and Himalayas, which are home to over 54,000 glaciers covering more than 60,000 square kilometers (23,000 square miles).

But the cooperation seen between India and Nepal remains too rare in the region, regional officials say.

Although countries face similar climate-related risks, political disagreements between countries, and a lack of legal arrangements for sharing information, are increasing the region’s vulnerability to natural disasters, they say.

Risks growing

David Molden, the director general of the Kathmandu-based International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), warned in an interview that HKH countries will suffer increasingly severe impacts from climate change-related disasters, particularly floods, cyclones, droughts and land erosion, if they do not cooperate in sharing information and early warnings.

But in a bid to boost the region’s climate resilience, political leaders, government policymakers and scientists from the region agreed at a conference in Nepal in December to work harder to boost collaboration to tackle common disaster risks.

Such cooperation would likely focus on everything from improving joint management of river basins to better monitoring of glacial melting and glacial lakes prone to outburst floods, Molden said.

Lyonpo Yeshey Dorji, Bhutan’s Minister for Agriculture and Forest, said he was confident that political leaders of the region would “join hands with scientists and policymakers to boost intra-regional collaboration in data sharing, knowledge and technology transfer for enhancing the region’s ability to withstand fallouts of climate change.”

Dorji added that countries needed to better understand the advantages that would be gained by exchanging data, local knowledge and technology.

Yusuf Zafar, chair of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, agreed that cooperation between countries was urgently needed.

“Plugging the gap … is vital to help people strengthen climate resilience, particularly those 210 million people in mountain areas,” he said.

Cross-border flood warnings

In the case of India and Nepal, the Indian Meteorological Department, together with India’s National Disaster Management Authority, monitors rainfall during the rainy season in Nepal and receives real-time flood information from its Nepali counterparts.

Communities in downriver flood-prone areas in India are able to contact hydrology stations in Nepal for information on potential flooding in that country’s upstream areas, officials said.

Asit Biswas, a scientist and visiting professor at Singapore-based Lee Kuan Yew School for Public Policy, told Reuters more evidence from science was needed to persuade politicians of the urgent need to invest in national and regional programs for resilience, focused on everything from food security to protection of water supplies.

“The goal of a climate-resilient HKH region is unlikely to be achieved as long as regional political leaders’ attention is not drawn to the exacerbating climate vulnerability of the HKH region,” Biswas said.

In some regions, cooperation is already improving. India, for example, used not to convey flood warnings to Bangladesh because of difficult political relations between the two countries, the experts said.

This made Bangladesh more vulnerable to flooding in the Ganges-Brahamaputra River that flows from India into Bangladesh, they said.

But Golam Rasul, a Bangladeshi development economist at ICIMOD, said that India now shares early flood warnings with its smaller neighbor, thanks to normalization of relations between the two countries.

When five Indian rivers that flow into Bangladesh flooded as a result of monsoon rains last August, Indian authorities alerted their Bangladeshi counterparts, enabling them to evacuate vulnerable residents alongside the rivers, he said.
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N. Korea to Send Orchestra to S. Korea to Perform During Olympics

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

North Korea will send a 140-member orchestra to perform during the Winter Olympics in South Korea next month, a move seen by the South’s government as a conciliatory gesture following months of nuclear tensions.

South Korean officials say the decision was made during a meeting between delegations from the two Koreas who met for the second time in a week Monday in the border village of Panmunjom as they try to work out details of the North’s participation in the Olympics.

The two sides agreed the orchestra would hold performances in Seoul and at Gangneung near the Olympic site of Pyeongchang, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a statement.

South Korean officials say the North’s orchestra will play traditional folk songs and classical music, and say the two countries’ orchestras may hold a joint concert.

The decision to host the orchestra “contributes to improving relations and recovering the cultural homogeneity” between the two Koreas, the South’s ministry said.

The North has said its delegation to the Winter Games in Pyeongchang would include artists, officials and journalists, as well as athletes.

The two sides will hold more talks Wednesday on the North’s athletes attending the Olympics. South Korea has also proposed a united women’s ice hockey team with the North. 

The International Olympic Committee must approve the proposals for athletes and is expected to meet with officials from both Koreas on Saturday at its headquarters in Switzerland.

North Korea’s recent conciliatory moves in connection with the Olympics are widely viewed as an attempt to ease tensions after last year’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

Despite the gestures, the two Koreas showed this weekend they still harbor bitter animosities.

The North issued a statement Sunday saying it could still cancel its plans for the Olympics in protest of recent comments by South Korean President Moon Jae-in crediting U.S. President Donald Trump with getting the North to talk with the South.

“They should know that trains and buses carrying our delegation to the Olympics are still in Pyongyang,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.
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Lead Singer of The Cranberries Dies at Age 46

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Dolores O’Riordan, the lead singer of Irish rock group The Cranberries, has died at the age of 46.

Her publicist says O’Riordan died suddenly while in London for a recording session.  No cause of death was given.

“Family members are devastated to hear the breaking news and have requested privacy at this very difficult time,” her publicist said.

 

The Cranberries gained popularity in the 1990s, with hit songs like “Linger” and “Zombie.”

The group has sold more than 40 million records.

O’Riordan last updated her Twitter page earlier this month, saying “Bye bye Gio, We’re off to Ireland.”

She is survived by a son and two daughters.
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Color Returns to Hollywood’s Red Carpets but Time’s Up Still Strong

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

After making a strong statement in black dresses at the Golden Globes to protest sexual harassment, actresses brought a burst of color back to the red carpet last week but said the message of the Time’s Up campaign will continue throughout Hollywood’s awards season.

From white gowns on Angelina Jolie and Greta Gerwig to bold tones on Nicole Kidman, Jessica Chastain and Allison Janney, actresses and filmmakers donned a vast palette at the Jan. 11 Critics Choice awards.

“The ‘Wear Black’ specifically was for the Golden Globes but the [Time’s Up] message remains. Enough is enough,” said Rachel Brosnahan, award-winning star of Amazon series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”

“This is just the beginning of a much larger conversation that’s being translated into action, black or not,” said Brosnahan, who was dressed in a pale pink shimmering Zuhair Murad dress.

With glamorous stars drawing millions of spectators, red carpets have become the fashion world’s most coveted runway.

The Golden Globes saw throngs of top male and female talent wear black and don pins in solidarity with Time’s Up, launched by more than 300 entertainment figures to address workplace sexual harassment.

The Jan. 7 Golden Globes turnout raised questions about whether black would rule every show through the awards season, which culminates in the Oscars ceremony on March 4.

“The unity on the night was absolutely vital, but definitely going forward, we would want any woman to wear what she feels great in,” said InStyle editor-in-chief Laura Brown.

At the Critics Choice Awards, a handful of actresses stuck with the black dress code including Reese Witherspoon in Prada, Laura Dern in a Balmain jumpsuit and Emilia Clarke in Dolce and Gabbana. All three helped launch Time’s Up.

The scramble for black outfits at the Golden Globes is likely to have left actresses with numerous options for upcoming ceremonies such as the Jan. 21 Screen Actors Guild awards, said Marilyn Heston, founder of publicity firm MHA Media.

For an actress hoping to stand out on the red carpet, a bold color is often the way to win approval from the fashion world.

Black dresses, however, have always been good for business.

“There’s a lot of women out there who love wearing black dresses. They sell,” Heston said.

“If there’s really beautiful black gowns and cocktail dresses created for some of the other events, I would say a great number of women will go ‘wow, wonderful dresses, can I buy them?’”

The award shows coincide with fashion weeks in New York, Paris, Milan and London, where designers will showcase their autumn/winter 2018 collections.

Whether there will be a flurry of black dresses on the runway remains to be seen, Brown said, but she added designers are conscious of the movement.

“The last thing you want for a designer is to not be themselves, but also designers are acutely aware of the world around them so hopefully there’s a way they can marry their own signatures with being cognizant of where we are,” Brown said.
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Palestinians to Get 3G in West Bank, After Israel Lifts Ban

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Palestinians in the West Bank are finally getting high-speed mobile data services, after a yearslong Israeli ban that cost their fragile economy hundreds of millions of dollars, impeded tech start-ups and denied them simple conveniences enjoyed by the rest of the world.

 

Palestinian cell phone providers Wataniya and Jawwal are expected to launch 3G broadband services in the West Bank by the end of this month, Palestinian officials said, after Israel assigned frequencies and allowed the import of equipment.

 

“It’s about time,” Wataniya CEO Durgham Maraee said of the anticipated launch, speaking to The Associated Press at company headquarters in the West Bank last week. “It has taken a very, very long time.”

 

The belated move to 3G comes a decade after Palestinian operators first sought Israeli permits and at a time when faster 4G is increasingly available in the Middle East.

 

This keeps Palestinian mobile companies at a continued disadvantage, including in competition with Israeli companies that offer 3G and 4G coverage to Palestinian customers in the West Bank through towers installed in Israeli settlements. The World Bank has criticized this state of affairs because the Israeli firms do not pay license fees or taxes to the Palestinian authorities.

 

The Israeli ban on 3G also remains in place in the Gaza Strip, making that Palestinian territory, dominated by the militant group Hamas, one of the last without such services across the globe. Mobile internet is available in far-flung places, from the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan to the Atlantic’s volcanic rock island of Ascension.

 

In blocking 3G for years, Israel has cited security concerns, without going into details. Officials suggest, for example, that high-speed mobile data could make it easier for Palestinian militants to communicate while reducing the risk of Israeli surveillance.

 

Israel’s Shin Bet security agency declined comment Sunday.

 

COGAT, an Israeli Defense Ministry branch, said it worked on implementing a 2015 memorandum of understanding with the Palestinians on 3G, and that it expects a launch in two to three weeks. Officials did not respond to questions about Israel’s yearslong ban on 3G.

 

Israel has delayed approval for Palestinian economic development projects in the past, leading to efforts by high-level international efforts to try to speed things along. Most recently, President Donald Trump’s Mideast team has urged Israel to make economic gestures to the Palestinians.

 

Palestinian officials have said they suspect such projects are being used as political leverage.

 

At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for so-called “economic peace” with the Palestinians, as he stepped back from offers by predecessors to negotiate the terms of an independent Palestinian state on lands Israel captured in 1967.

 

At Wataniya headquarters, where employees got 3G as part of pre-launch tests, the mood was upbeat.

 

The CEO said the 3G launch and the company’s recent expansion into Gaza, after Israel lifted restrictions on importing equipment, could translate into profits in 2018 — the first since Wataniya began operations in 2009 as the second Palestinian cellphone provider.

 

“The future is bright,” Maraee said.

 

But the company’s struggles also illustrate the difficulties faced by Palestinian entrepreneurs, large and small, as they operate under Israeli obstacles to trade, movement and access.

 

Israel has kept a tight grip on the daily lives of Palestinians since its 1967 capture of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, areas sought for a Palestinian state.

 

It annexed east Jerusalem and retains overall control of the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority, a self-rule government, administers 38 percent of the West Bank, while the remaining area, home to 400,000 Israeli settlers, is largely off-limits to Palestinian economic development.

 

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but has enforced a border blockade, along with Egypt, since Hamas seized the strip in 2007. The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to regain a foothold in Gaza in stop-and-go reconciliation talks with Hamas.

 

The World Bank has repeatedly urged Israel to unshackle the Palestinian economy to allow private sector growth, essential for lowering double-digit Palestinian unemployment.

 

In 2016, the bank said the Palestinian mobile phone sector lost more than $1 billion in potential earnings over the previous three years, largely due to Israeli restrictions.

 

It noted that Israeli providers siphoned off as much as 30 percent of the potential Palestinian customer base in the West Bank with offers of 3G and 4G services.

 

Maraee said Wataniya has stayed afloat in part because of the continued support of its main investors — the Qatar-based telecommunications company Ooredoo and the self-rule government’s Palestinian Investment Fund.

 

Wataniya is now at the break-even point, but that it once suffered losses of as much as $20 million a year, he said.

 

“If it wasn’t for the commitment of the PIF and the Ooredoo Group … to the Palestinian economy, probably Wataniya would not have survived under these trying circumstances,” he said.

 

Smaller Palestinian entrepreneurs also expect an immediate 3G bump in business.

 

Ali Taha launched Rocab, an online taxi booking service, last July, but has so far captured only a tiny slice of the market. He expects a significant increase with 3G, since customers would be able to summon a ride from anywhere, instead of having to search for a location with WiFi.

 

Shadi Atshan, founder of the Palestinian start-up accelerator FastForward, said he expects app development to flourish and generate more Palestinian tech jobs.

 

For ordinary Palestinians, everyday life will get just a little easier.

 

Alaa Amouri, 20, a student, said she gets 4G from an Israeli provider that offers only partial coverage in the West Bank.

 

Mobile data from a Palestinian provider would offer real-time updates on potential trouble on the roads, said Amouri, who commutes between east Jerusalem and her West Bank university, passing through the crowded Israeli-run Qalandiya crossing almost daily.

 

“It (3G) helps in getting news updates,” she said. “Sometimes when we are at the Qalandiya crossing, we find it blocked without knowing why.”

 
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Uganda Considering Launching Its Own Social Media Platforms

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

[Uganda is mulling over the idea of creating its own social media platforms. But social media users and government critics see this as a potential effort to control free expression.

Facebook and Twitter should brace themselves for competition from Uganda. With no name yet or date on when the new services will be operational, the Uganda Communications Commission is planning to launch its own social media platforms.

Commission Director Godfrey Mutabazi says Uganda has many young people who have come up with innovations and applications that can be deployed to serve the population.

“There is open information for everything. We have got over almost 70 percent penetration,” he said. “We are moving into digital era, data communication. We are hope that by the end of this year 20-25 percent, maybe 30 percent of Ugandans will be on data communication. So we shall access the information, education-wise, research, name it, will be available.”

Nicholas Opiyo executive director of Chapter Four Uganda, a local civil liberties organization, says Uganda is not seeking to develop its own social media space because it appreciates the innovative power of social media. He fears a darker purpose.

“One I don’t believe they can do it, but if they want to do it, it’s not for the best of intentions,” he said. “Recent studies have shown that the government of Uganda is now involved in active filtering of particular information. Namely; information about corruption, information about same sex relations, critical government policies on the first family, that’s what they are trying to do. That’s what they are trying to do, because the biggest threat to this government now, is an informed citizenry.”

In 2016, the Ugandan government shut down social media twice — on Election Day and during President Yoweri Museveni’s swearing in ceremony. For social media users like Jackie Kemigisa, a move by the government regulator to set up its own social media is cause to worry.

“As a person who uses social media and whose source of employment, everything that I do is online, it was a horrible idea. At first I thought it was a joke. So, counting on the sad part of it that they don’t have the money, and if they do, well then, Ugandans will have to re-strategize, go back to the drawing board and see how we can still fight for our freedoms,” said Kemigisa.

Critics say a social media platform controlled by the government will put Uganda in the same league as countries such as Iran, China and North Korea. But the Uganda Communications Commission has described those who see this innovation as eroding freedom of speech as patronizing. The government agency insists they just want to keep hate speech out of Ugandan social media, and says the new platforms are going to be positive.

 
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Vietnam Seeks Upper Hand on Dissent with Rules On Foreign Internet Services

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Vietnam is adding pressure on foreign internet firms to keep data on local users and be more accessible to the country’s authorities as the country tightens control over online dissent.

A bill that the Southeast Asian country’s Ministry of Public Security offered to legislators this month would require foreign internet services to open representative offices if they have at least 10,000 Vietnamese users or if otherwise requested, official media say.

The bill being reviewed by the National Assembly also calls for making the same foreign companies store data on Vietnamese users in Vietnam, VnExpress International reported Jan. 11. 

Those providers should collect “important data collected or generated from activities in the country,” the report adds.

Legislation on normally free-wheeling foreign internet firms such as Facebook and Google, both popular among Vietnamese, extend the Communist country’s tightening of control over online dissent after initial moves over the past two years, analysts say.

“In recent years Vietnam has witnessed a boom on the Internet and social media plays a very important role in Vietnamese citizens’ lives, and so I think that the government is aware of the importance of social media,” said Trung Nguyen, international relations dean at Ho Chi Minh University of Social Sciences and Humanities.

“That’s the reason why they want to establish their presence, because they want to control social media,” he said.

Trend of tightening

A series of arrests of bloggers in 2016 and 2017 bared the Vietnamese government’s sensitivity to public views about graft and inefficiency among officials, experts believe. 

Those views weigh increasingly on state-to-people relations despite Vietnam’s fast economic growth that has brought perks such as job creation.

In June 2017 the Ministry of Public Security initially proposed the law to give it more power over prohibited content, including cyber-crime, and anti-government activities. 

Owners of Internet cafes had already been asked to install monitoring software and make customers show identification that inspectors could check.

But Vietnam lacks an Internet censorship scheme like its Communist neighbor China. Vietnam does not, for example, routinely filter websites for provocative keywords or block foreign social media networks. Authorities are, however, allowed to stop content that includes “propaganda against the state.”

About 70 percent of Vietnam’s total 92 million people use the internet, with 53 million on social media sites, government figures show. The country lacks widespread, homegrown social media, steering people instead toward foreign-registered services.

Officials also hope the law, now it its fifth draft, will also ease “fake news,” curb internet fraud and stop hacking that has hit 18,000 Vietnam-registered websites including that of the country’s chief airline, said Lam Nguyen, country manager with market research firm IDC. Risk of internet crime is particularly high in Vietnam, he said.

The representative offices required under the law would force foreign Internet firms to pay taxes and follow local regulations that they can avoid now by basing offshore.

Still, a chief mission of the pending legislation is to keep dissent offline, Trung Nguyen said.

“Obviously some things they feel sensitive about,” said Yee Chung Seck, partner with the international law form Baker & McKenzie (Vietnam). “And there’s such a degree of what’s the level of sensitivity — does it somehow cross the line into being abusive.”

Foreign firms expected to comply

Facebook and Google are expected to follow the new law once passed. Neither American internet giant replied to a request for comment for this report, but Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communications said Friday it had gotten initial compliance from both.

Google and YouTube have blocked or removed “many harmful and unlawful video clips,” though they still appear on Facebook, the ministry said in a statement. Facebook, it said, has taken down more than 670 of about 5,000 accounts that Vietnam said are “false” or “spread defamation, obscenity and violence.”

Facebook has closed 159 anti-government accounts and Google has removed 4,500 videos containing “bad or toxic content from YouTube,” VnExpress International said.

“The minister stressed that Vietnam was particularly concerned about information that incites anti-government and anti-Party sentiment, violence, or smears the regime, and called for Facebook’s collaboration to deal with the problem,” said the statement, which followed a meeting between the minister and Facebook’s regional regulatory affairs head Damien Yeo.

Internet firms are likely to comply as long as they can avoid hurting overall business.

“I think to a certain degree, probably, if it’s not too much of a cost and not so much disruption to their current business in Vietnam, they would probably try to comply,” Lam Nguyen said.

The Facebook legal affairs official pledged to work with authorities in “dealing with bad information in the global scale,” the ministry website said.
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Open Source Medical Tech Making Life Easier for Diabetics

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

For Type 1 diabetics their disease requires them to constantly monitor their blood sugar. Now some of them are creating some home-made tech to help monitor their status. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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French Dairy Recalls Infant Milk from 83 Countries

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

More than 12 million boxes of French baby milk products are being recalled from 83 countries for suspected salmonella contamination.

The recall includes Lactalis’ Picot, Milumel and Taranis brands.

The head of the French dairy Lactalis on Sunday confirmed that its products are being recalled from countries across Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia after salmonella was discovered at one of its plants last month. The United States, Britain and Australia were not affected.

Emmanuel Besnier told weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche that his family company, one of the world’s biggest dairies, would pay damages to “every family which has suffered a prejudice.”

The paper said 35 babies were diagnosed with salmonella in France, one in Spain and a possible case in Greece.

Salmonella can cause severe diarrhea, stomach cramps, vomiting and severe dehydration. It can be life-threatening, especially in young children.

Lactalis officials have said they believe the contamination was caused by renovation work at their Celia factory in Craon, in northwest France.

France’s agriculture minister said products from the factory will be banned indefinitely during the investigation.

 
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How Tech Affects Kids a Concern at Consumer Electronics Show

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Kathryn Green and her husband prevented their young son from playing on screen devices until he was 2 years old.

Then they handed him a Square Panda, a screen that sounds out letters. He loved it.

“It was pretty incredible and actually scary in some ways to see how quickly he was drawn to it and knew what to do,” said Green, who works at Square Panda.

Square Panda, in many parents’ eyes, would qualify as good screen time. It teaches young children early literacy while also engaging them with fun sounds and cartoonlike figures. The company was among thousands last week exhibiting at CES, the large consumer electronics show that took place in Las Vegas.

WATCH: Tech’s Effects on Kids a Concern at Consumer Electronics Show

Worries about kids and screens

But while there was a lot of excitement at CES about the latest in drones, robots and wearable devices, there was also some ambivalence about how the digital life might be affecting children.

“We need to start to set our own rules,” said Robin Raskin, with Living in Digital Times, a firm that creates tech conferences. “And I don’t think you can depend on the industry to set them for you. But I think you can depend on them to make the tools so you can set your rules easily.”

Should Apple help parents?

Tech executives have also sounded the alarm, and earlier this month, two large Apple shareholders wrote to the iPhone maker to express their concerns.

They asked the company to do more to help parents who want to restrict their children’s use of mobile phones and requested that Apple fund research looking into the effects of smartphones and other technologies on children. 

“Eighth-graders who are heavy users of social media have a 27 percent higher risk of depression, while those who exceed the average time spent playing sports, hanging out with friends in person, or doing homework have a significantly lower risk,” the investors wrote.

“Wait Until 8th,” a parent group, invites parents to hold out until the eighth grade before letting their adolescents have their own smartphones. The organizers say that smartphones are addictive, affect sleep and interfere with schoolwork and friendships.

At CES, some exhibitors aimed their products at anxious parents worried that screens are upending play.

Games beyond screens

When John Shi’s older two children received laptops, “they just disappeared behind screens,” said the long-time tech executive.

Inspired to do something differently with his third child, he created Beyond Screen, a company that makes interactive games that do not rely on screens. He says tech executives should make products and services they would let their own kids use.

“I’m not going to make all these things that will just simply suck in our children’s time, without providing benefits, that really take them away from social interactions, take them away from parents and teachers, make them feel lonely,” Shi said. “I’ll make products my children will actually use.”

An opportunity for tech

Raskin says the growing ambivalence is a chance for the tech industry to do something new.

“The industry has a big opportunity to say, ‘We will educate you, trust us, we got you covered,’” she said. “And they really do owe it to people.’’
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Tech’s Effects on Kids a Concern at Consumer Electronics Show

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Even at CES, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, there is ambivalence about the ways technology affects children. VOA’s Michelle Quinn talked to people about the benefits and costs as technology is becoming more a part of young people’s lives.
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