Month: January 2018

Cigarette Smoking Rates in US Reach Historic Lows

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

The American Lung Association says fewer Americans smoke cigarettes now than before tobacco control policies were put in place. 

In its annual report, the ALA says smoking rates among adults and teens are at historic lows. On average, just over 15.5 percent of American adults and eight percent of high school students smoke cigarettes.

The association gets its data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which show the smoking rate declined from 20.9 percent in 2005 to 15.5 percent in 2016. Still, CDC data shows that nearly 38 million American adults continue to smoke. 

“The good news is that these data are consistent with the declines in adult cigarette smoking that we’ve seen for several decades. These findings also show that more people are quitting, and those who continue to smoke are smoking less,” according to Corinne Graffunder, director of the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health quoted in a news release from the CDC. 

Yet, the American Lung Association finds that certain groups and regions in the United States are disproportionately impacted by tobacco use and exposure to second-hand smoke. Thomas Carr, the ALA’s Director of National Policy who wrote the 2018 report “The State of Tobacco Control,” said poorer Americans, those who are less educated, Native Americans and some ethnic groups have smoking rates that are close to 30 percent or higher. 

“The tobacco industry advertises more to some of these groups and more heavily than others, and you will find in low-income areas, there are sometimes a bigger concentration of tobacco stores and that kind of thing.”

There’s also peer pressure, and when friends or parents smoke, teens tend to take up the habit. Studies show that most people who smoke start before they are 18. Some start as young as age 11 according to The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Carr calls it a pediatric disease. “It starts in your teens and then once you’re hooked, you can’t get off of it.”

The lung association is pushing states to raise the age where young people can legally purchase cigarettes to 21, the minimum age in the United States for purchasing alcohol. The thought is that if middle and high school students can’t get cigarettes, they are less likely to start smoking. “It cuts off access to people 15 to 17 years old. A lot of times they’ll go to their friends who are 18 (and still) in high school, but they’re not as likely to hang around with people who are 19 or 20 or 21.” So far five states — California, Oregon, Maine, Hawaii and New Jersey have raised the age to 21. 

The lung association issues an annual report to help promote state and federal regulations to make it easier for people who smoke to quit and to help those who don’t smoke not to start. 
…

more

Ursula K. Le Guin, Best-selling Science Fiction Author, Dies

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Ursula K. Le Guin, the award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer who explored feminist themes and was best known for her Earthsea books, has died at 88.

 

Le Guin died suddenly and peacefully Monday at her home in Portland, Oregon, after several weeks of health concerns, her son, Theo Downes-Le Guin said Tuesday.

 

“She left an extraordinary legacy as an artist and as an advocate of peace and critical thinking and fairness, and she was a great mother and wife as well,” he said.

 

“Godspeed into the galaxy,” Stephen King tweeted, saying Le Guin was a literary icon, not just a science fiction writer.

 

Le Guin won an honorary National Book Award in 2014 and warned in her acceptance speech against letting profit define what is considered good literature.

 

Despite being a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1997 — a rare achievement for a science fiction-fantasy writer — she often criticized the “commercial machinery of bestsellerdom and prizedom.”

 

“I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river,” Le Guin said in the speech. “We who live by writing and publishing want — and should demand — our fair share of the proceeds. But the name of our beautiful reward is not profit. Its name is freedom.”

 

Le Guin’s first novel was “Roncannon’s World” in 1966 but she gained fame three years later with “The Left Hand of Darkness,” which won the Hugo and Nebula awards — top science fiction prizes — and conjures a radical change in gender roles well before the rise of the transgender community.

 

The book imagines a future society in which people are equally male and female and also dramatizes the perils of tyranny, violence and conformity.

 

Her best-known works, the Earthsea books, have sold in the millions worldwide and have been translated into 16 languages. She also produced volumes of short stories, poetry, essays and literature for young adults.

 

Le Guin’s work also won the Newbery Medal, the top honor for American children’s literature. Last year, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

 

“I know that I am always called ‘the sci-fi writer.’ Everybody wants to stick me into that one box, while I really live in several boxes,” she told reviewer Mark Wilson of Scifi.com.

 

Neil Gaiman, a fellow Newbery, Hugo and Nebula recipient, mourned her death on Twitter and called Le Guin “the deepest and smartest of the writers.”

 

“Her words are always with us. Some of them are written on my soul,” he wrote.

 

A longtime feminist, Le Guin earned degrees from Radcliffe and Columbia. Her 1983 “Left-Handed Commencement Address” at Mills College was ranked one of the top 100 speeches of the 20th century in a 1999 survey by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Texas A&M University.

 

“Why should a free woman with a college education either fight Machoman or serve him?” she told the graduates. “Why should she live her life on his terms? … I hope you live without the need to dominate, and without the need to be dominated.”

 

Born in Berkeley, California, on Oct. 21, 1929, Le Guin described a well-off childhood even during the Depression, with summers in the countryside. Her success followed an early setback: At age 11, she had her first offering rejected by Amazing Stories, the pioneering science fiction magazine.

 

“During the Second World War, my brothers all went into service and the summers in the Valley became lonely ones, just me and my parents in the old house,” she told sfsite.com, another science fiction website.

 

“There was no TV then; we turned on the radio once a day to get the war news. Those summers of solitude and silence, a teenager wandering the hills on my own, no company, ‘nothing to do,’ were very important to me. I think I started making my soul then,” she said.

 

She married Charles Le Guin in Paris in 1953. They moved to Portland and had three children.

 

Her themes ranged from children’s literature to explorations of Taoism, feminism, anarchy, psychology and sociology to tales of a society where reading and writing are punishable by death and of a scientist who battles aliens to save the world.

 

Critic Harold Bloom placed her in the pantheon of fantasy writers along with JRR Tolkien.

 

“Sometimes I think I am just trying to superstitiously avert evil by talking about it,” she told sfsite.com. “Throughout my whole adult life, I have watched us blighting our world irrevocably … ignoring every warning and neglecting every benevolent alternative in pursuit of `growth.'”
…

more

Hollywood’s Oldest Working Actress, Connie Sawyer, Dies at 105

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

You may not know her name, but you know her face.

Connie Sawyer, known in Hollywood as the oldest working actress in show business, has finally ended her career. 

Sawyer died late Monday at her home in Los Angeles at 105.

She began her career as a singer and comedienne on radio, in nightclubs, and vaudeville in the early 1930s. 

When Sawyer became too old to be called a “girl singer,” she began acting in character parts on Broadway and on hundreds of television comedy shows and films, playing little old ladies in such hits as When Harry Met Sally, Dumb and Dumber, and Pineapple Express.

Sawyer never retired and said she never wanted to be a star — just a working actress who could always get a paycheck.
…

more

Trump Administration Prepares Flurry of Trade Moves

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

The Trump administration is set to announce a raft of trade decisions over the next months, ranging from curbs on foreign imports of steel and aluminum to steps to clamp down on China’s alleged theft of intellectual property.

U.S. President Donald Trump has stressed his “America First” agenda in his first year in office and called for fairer, more reciprocal trade. He has blamed globalization for ravaging American manufacturing jobs as companies sought to reduce labor costs by relocating to Mexico and elsewhere.

Imported washing machines, solar panels

In its first major trade decision of the year, the administration slapped steep tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels, boosting Whirlpool Corp. and dealing a setback to the renewable energy industry.

Monday’s decision imposed a 20 percent tariff on the first 1.2 million imported large residential washers in the first year, and a 50 percent tariff on machines above that number. The tariff declines to 16 percent and 40 percent respectively in the third year.

The move punishes Samsung Electronics, which recently began washer production in South Carolina, and LG Electronics, which is building a plant in Tennessee.

The U.S. Solar Energy Industries Association on Tuesday warned that Trump’s move to slap 30 percent tariffs on imported panels would kill tens of thousands of jobs, raise the cost of going solar and quash billions of dollars of investment.

South Korea could push back by launching a complaint through the Geneva-based World Trade Organization, but that is likely to take years. Seoul could also raise it during current negotiations with the United States on modifying the U.S.-South Korea free-trade agreement, known as KORUS.

Steel

The U.S. Commerce Department sent its recommendations on ways to curb foreign steel imports to the White House on January 11. The report followed Trump’s decision, made several months after he took office, to open a Section 232 investigation (from Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962) into whether steel imports threaten U.S. national security.

Trump has 90 days to decide on any potential action. He has promised that any actions will protect steelworkers from imports. Curbing excess steel production in China, which now supplies half of the world’s steel, would be a key goal of any action. Broad tariffs could, however, also affect steelmakers in Europe, Japan, South Korea and Turkey.

It is unclear when the decision on steel imports will be announced.

Aluminum

The Commerce Department has sent Trump the results of its national security investigation into aluminum imports. That Section 232 probe could see broad import restrictions imposed on lightweight metal. The White House has been debating whether to order broad tariffs or quotas on steel and aluminum, pitting administration officials who favor aggressive restrictions against those who favor a more cautious approach to avoid a run-up in prices.

It is unclear when Trump will make his decision.

​Intellectual property

Trump and his trade advisers are currently considering penalizing China under Section 301 of the 1974 trade law for its alleged theft of American intellectual property.

The 301 investigation would allow Trump to impose retaliatory tariffs on Chinese goods or other trade sanctions until China changes its policies.

Trump told Reuters in an interview on January 17 that he was considering imposing a big “fine” against China, but he did not elaborate on his answer.

U.S. businesses say they lose hundreds of billions of dollars in technology and millions of jobs to Chinese firms that have stolen ideas and software or forced them to turn over intellectual property as part of doing business in China.

A White House official told Reuters January 19 that Trump was particularly focused on the 301 investigation because it was “systemic” and covered a large swath of American businesses.

China could retaliate by weighing whether the actions are in line with WTO rules while ratcheting up pressure on U.S. businesses — for example, by buying from a European company such as Airbus instead of Boeing.
…

more

AI Can Read! Tech Firms Race to Smarten Up Thinking Machines

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Seven years ago, a computer beat two human quizmasters on a Jeopardy challenge. Ever since, the tech industry has been training its machines even harder to make them better at amassing knowledge and answering questions.

And it’s worked, at least up to a point. Just don’t expect artificial intelligence to spit out a literary analysis of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace any time soon.

Research teams at Microsoft and Chinese tech company Alibaba reached what they described as a milestone earlier this month when their AI systems outperformed the estimated human score on a reading comprehension test. It was the latest demonstration of rapid advances that have improved search engines and voice assistants and that are finding broader applications in health care and other fields.

The answers they got wrong — and the test itself — also highlight the limitations of computer intelligence and the difficulty of comparing it directly to human intelligence.

Error! Error!

“We are still a long way from computers being able to read and comprehend general text in the same way that humans can,” said Kevin Scott, Microsoft’s chief technology officer, in a LinkedIn post that also commended the achievement by the company’s Beijing-based researchers.

The test developed at Stanford University demonstrated that, in at least some circumstances, computers can beat humans at quickly “reading” hundreds of Wikipedia entries and coming up with accurate answers to questions about Genghis Khan’s reign or the Apollo space program.

The computers, however, also made mistakes that many people wouldn’t have.

Microsoft, for instance, fumbled an easy football question about which member of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers got the most interceptions in the 2015 season (the correct answer was Kurt Coleman, not Josh Norman). A person’s careful reading of the Wikipedia passage would have discovered the right answer, but the computer tripped up on the word “most” and didn’t understand that seven is bigger than four.

“You need some very simple reasoning here, but the machine cannot get it,” said Jianfeng Gao, of Microsoft’s AI research division.

Human vs. machine

It’s not uncommon for machine-learning competitions to pit the cognitive abilities of computers against humans. Machines first bested people in an image-recognition competition in 2015 and a speech recognition competition last year, although they’re still easily tricked. Computers have also vanquished humans at chess, Pac-Man and the strategy game Go.

And since IBM’s Jeopardy victory in 2011, the tech industry has shifted its efforts to data-intensive methods that seek to not just find factoids, but better comprehend the meaning of multi-sentence passages.

Like the other tests, the Stanford Question Answering Dataset, nicknamed Squad, attracted a rivalry among research institutions and tech firms — with Google, Facebook, Tencent, Samsung and Salesforce also giving it a try.

“Academics love competitions,” said Pranav Rajpurkar, the Stanford doctoral student who helped develop the test. “All these companies and institutions are trying to establish themselves as the leader in AI.”

Limits of understanding

The tech industry’s collection and digitization of huge troves of data, combined with new sets of algorithms and more powerful computing, has helped inject new energy into a machine-learning field that’s been around for more than half a century. But computers are still “far off” from truly understanding what they’re reading, said Michael Littman, a Brown University computer science professor who has tasked computers to solve crossword puzzles.

Computers are getting better at the statistical intuition that allows them to scan text and find what seems relevant, but they still struggle with the logical reasoning that comes naturally to people. (And they are often hopeless when it comes to deciphering the subtle wink-and-nod trickery of a clever puzzle.) Many of the common ways of measuring artificial intelligence are in some ways teaching to the test, Littman said.

“It strikes me for the kind of problem that they’re solving that it’s not possible to do better than people, because people are defining what’s correct,” Littman said of the Stanford benchmark. “The impressive thing here is they met human performance, not that they’ve exceeded it.”
…

more

Europe’s Recovery Rolls On — And So Does European Central Bank Stimulus

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Europe’s economy is on a roll — raising the question of exactly when the European Central Bank will end its extraordinary stimulus efforts. Bank President Mario Draghi will be at pains this week to leave that point open.

No changes in stimulus settings or interest rates are expected at Thursday’s meeting of the bank’s 25-member governing council, which sets monetary policy for the 19 countries that use the euro.

Draghi’s post-meeting news conference, however, will be closely scrutinized for any hints of a change in the timetable for withdrawing a key stimulus component — a massive bond-buying program — later this year.

Here is a fast guide.

Where’s inflation?

Stubbornly low inflation is why Draghi and his ECB colleagues want to keep the stimulus program running.

The bank’s mission is to keep inflation consistently close to but below 2 percent. Usually that means fighting inflation, but in the case of this economic recovery, prices have been unusually slow to respond to a pickup in demand for goods. Annual inflation was just 1.4 percent in December. Excluding oil and food, it was even lower, at 0.9 percent. Meanwhile, the economy is expected to have grown 2.4 percent in 2017; unemployment has fallen from over 12 percent to 8.7 percent.

ECB officials say that eventually growth will lead to higher wages as unemployment falls and labor becomes scarcer. But inflation has taken its time to show up.

Stimulus settings

So Draghi has been urging patience. The bank lowered its bond purchases to 30 billion euros ($37 billion) a month at the start of the year, from 60 billion euros, and has said they will run at least through September — and longer if necessary. The purchases, started in March 2015, pump newly printed money into the economy, which should raise inflation and make credit easier to get.

Much of the speculation in markets has centered on whether the purchases will stop in September, or be continued, perhaps at a lower level. Draghi and the governing council majority have so far resisted stimulus skeptics on the board, such as Germany’s Jens Weidmann, who say it’s time to head for the exit from stimulus.

Promises, promises

A key point to watch is the wording the bank uses to manage expectations of its future actions. Right now, the bank has included wording in its policy statement that it could increase the bond purchases if necessary. Dropping that phrase would be a first step to prepare markets for an end to the stimulus. This week’s meeting might be too early for that tweak, but the wording is being watched in the markets.

The bank has also promised it won’t raise interest rates — its benchmark rate is currently zero — until well after the end of the bond purchases. That puts a first rate increase well into 2019.  

Why you should care

The withdrawal of the stimulus by the ECB and other central banks such as the U.S. Federal Reserve will have wide-ranging effects on the finances of ordinary people.

Higher interest rates will mean more return on savings accounts and an easier time funding private and public pension plans. They could also mean trouble for “zombie companies” that might not have any profits if they had to pay higher rates to borrow. Such bankruptcies would be painful in the short term, but would free investment for more profitable uses.

More interest earnings on conservative holdings such as bonds and time deposits would make riskier assets — like stocks — relatively less attractive, and ease the pressure on investors and savers to rummage for returns in riskier holdings.

Down, euro, down

Market reaction is a key concern for Draghi, particularly when it comes to the euro’s exchange rate. The euro has risen in the past several weeks, to around $1.22, in part because markets are anticipating an end to the stimulus. Monetary stimulus can weaken a currency, so investors are bidding the euro up on speculation that the stimulus might come to an earlier end due to the strong economy.

A stronger euro, however, can hurt Europe’s many exporters and further weaken inflation.

Here’s the take from analyst Florian Hense at Berenberg Bank: “The ECB should and will likely stop asset purchases after September: Recent hawkish comments, including the minutes of the last meeting, point in that direction.

“However, in order to not trigger a further appreciation of the euro, the ECB will likely change its communication only cautiously and gradually — and not in January already.”
…

more

Music Firms Sue to Keep Hit Songs Off Fitness Streaming App

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Some of the nation’s largest recording studios have joined forces in an effort to stop a music streaming service aimed at fitness enthusiasts from using songs by Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Green Day and other stars.

In a federal lawsuit filed in Atlanta, Sony Music Entertainment and more than a dozen other record companies say Fit Radio illegally infringes on their copyrighted recordings “on a massive scale.”

The Atlanta-based streaming business is hurting artists who rely on music royalties, the music companies states in the suit filed recently in U.S. District Court in Atlanta. The lawsuit mentioned several major artists, including Beyonce, Jason Derulo, Green Day and others.

“Rampant copyright infringement of sound recordings over the internet and through mobile applications, including the infringement engaged in and enabled by entities such as Fit Radio, has resulted in significant harm to the music industry, including to artists who rely on royalties from recorded music for their livelihood,” the complaint states.

A representative of the Atlanta firm said in a statement Tuesday that it looks forward to “being vindicated by the court system.”

“We will continue providing exceptional services to our customers,” it said.

Fit Radio is available through its website, fitradio.com, and through an application or app on mobile devices such as cellphones. Fit Radio recruits disc jockeys who copy and upload popular songs to attract users, the lawsuit says.

The streaming service entices the DJs to upload recordings to Fit Radio as a way for the DJs to “promote your personal brand,” the lawsuit states. The company also supports the DJs with marketing efforts through Facebook and email campaigns, according to the lawsuit.

The recording companies say their music is legally streamed via services such as Apple Music and Spotify through business agreements with them. But Fit Radio is different because it has no such agreements to stream the copyrighted music, they say.
…

more

Winners, Losers of Trump’s Solar Panel Tariff

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed into law a steep tariff on imported solar panels, a move billed as a way to protect American jobs but which the solar industry said would lead to tens of thousands of layoffs.

The following are some questions and answers about the decision:

What impact will the decision have on the solar industry?

Trump has said the tariff will lead to more U.S. manufacturing jobs, by preventing foreign goods that are cheap and often subsidized from undercutting domestic products. He also expects foreign solar panel producers to start manufacturing in the United States.

“You’re going to have people getting jobs again and we’re going to make our own product again. It’s been a long time,” Trump said as he signed the order.

The main solar industry trade group, the Solar Energy Industries Association, has a different view: It predicts the tariff will put 23,000 people out of work in the panel installation business this year by raising product costs and thus reducing demand.

Research firm Wood Mackenzie estimated that over the next five years the tariffs would reduce U.S. solar installation growth by 10 to 15 percent. The United States is the world’s fourth-largest solar market after China, Japan and Germany.

Research firm CFRA analyst Angelo Zino said he expected any added manufacturing jobs would be “minimal” given the 18 months to two years it takes to build and ramp up a new production facility and the industry’s shift toward automation.

Who wanted the tariff?

The main beneficiaries of the tariff include U.S.-based solar manufacturers Suniva and SolarWorld.

Suniva filed for bankruptcy in April, days before it filed the petition for trade relief. The Georgia-based company argued it could not compete with the cheap imports that have caused panel prices to fall more than 30 percent since 2016. It was later joined in the petition by SolarWorld. They asked the Trump administration for the equivalent of a 50 percent tariff.

Suniva is majority-owned by Hong Kong-based Shunfeng International Clean Energy, and SolarWorld is the U.S. arm of Germany’s SolarWorld AG.

Suniva called the tariffs “necessary,” while SolarWorld said it was “hopeful they will be enough.”

Most other U.S. solar companies, including SunPower, which manufactures panels in Asia, and residential installer SunRun Inc. were opposed to the trade barrier — as were offshore manufacturers such as China’s JinkoSolar, which will be among the biggest losers.

Solar manufacturer and developer First Solar supported the tariffs, and is likely to be among the biggest beneficiaries. First Solar makes panels using cadmium telluride that are excluded from the trade case. The company has seen an increase in demand for its unique technology.

Will the tariff lead to a trade war?

China branded the move an “overreaction” that would harm the global trade environment.

“The U.S.’s decision … is an abuse of trade remedy measures, and China expresses strong dissatisfaction regarding this,” said Wang Hejun, the head of the commerce ministry’s Trade Remedy and Investigation Bureau. “China will work with other WTO [World Trade Organization] members to resolutely defend its legitimate interests in response to the erroneous U.S. decision.”

Trump dismissed worries of trade retaliation.

“There won’t be a trade war. It’ll only be stock increases for companies that are in our country,” he said.

How does the tariff fit into Trump’s energy policy?

If the tariff cools growth in the U.S. solar industry, it could help Trump’s effort to support the coal industry — which competes with renewable energy technologies for a share of the nation’s power generation market.

Trump campaigned on a promise to revive the ailing coal mining sector and boost U.S. production of other fossil fuels as a way to create jobs and bolster American influence overseas.

He has also downplayed the threat from global warming — an issue that led past administrations to throw their support behind emissions-free solar and wind energy development — rolling back climate change regulations and pulling the United States from a global pact to combat it.
…

more

Sao Paulo Shuts Parks as Yellow Fever Outbreak Kills 70

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Sao Paulo closed its zoo and botanical gardens Tuesday as a yellow fever outbreak that has led to 70 deaths is picking up steam.

 

The big Inhotim art park, which attracts visitors from all over the world, also announced that all visitors would have to show proof of vaccination to be allowed in. The park said the measure was preventative and no case of yellow fever had been found there.

 

Cases of yellow fever have been rising in Brazil during the southern hemisphere summer rainy season, and health officials are planning to vaccinate millions of people in the coming weeks in the hopes of containing the outbreak.

Authorities did not say when the Sao Paulo zoo or nearby botanical gardens would reopen. The zoo said in a statement that a wild monkey was found dead last week in the park that contains the zoo and tests Monday confirmed it was positive for yellow fever.

According to figures put out by each state, 148 cases have been confirmed in the southeastern states of Minas Gerais, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Of those, 69 people have died. A week ago, the Health Ministry had confirmed 34 cases and 19 deaths in those states; it also confirmed one case in the capital district that ended in death.

Sao Paulo has registered the most cases, with 81, and the World Health Organization recommended last week that foreigners planning to travel anywhere in the state be vaccinated for the mosquito-borne disease. Brazil’s own recommendations include only parts of the state.

Much of Brazil is considered at risk for the yellow fever, but last year it saw its largest outbreak of the disease in decades, including in areas not previously thought to be at risk. More than 770 people were infected, and more than 250 died. Minas Gerais was at the epicenter of that outbreak, and it declared a state of emergency last week.

 

Yellow fever typically causes fever, muscle pain and nausea; some patients also experience the jaundice from which the disease gets its name.
…

more

US Stresses Lebanon Must Cut Hezbollah from Financial System

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Lebanon must cut Iran-backed Hezbollah from the financial sector, a U.S. official on combating illicit finance said Tuesday, two weeks after Washington began a new push to disrupt the militant group’s global financing routes.

On a two-day visit to Lebanon, the U.S. Treasury’s Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing Marshall Billingslea “urged Lebanon to take every possible measure to ensure [Hezbollah] is not part of the financial sector.”

Billingslea also “stressed the importance of countering Iranian malign activity in Lebanon,” a statement from the United States embassy in Lebanon said.

The Iran-backed, Shiite Hezbollah is classified as a terrorist group by Washington, but sits in Lebanon’s delicate national unity government.

U.S. officials say Hezbollah is funded not just by Iran but by global networks of people, businesses and money laundering operations.

The U.S. Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Acts of 2015 and 2017 aimed to sever the group’s funding routes and a number of people linked to Hezbollah are on sanctions lists.

The United States has had to balance its targeting of Hezbollah funding routes with the need to maintain Lebanon’s stability. Lebanese banking and political authorities have lobbied Washington to make sure its anti-Hezbollah measures do not destroy the banking system underpinning the economy.

In his meetings with President Michel Aoun, Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri and other banking and political figures, Billingslea said the U.S. government was committed to work with Lebanon to protect its financial system and support a “strong, stable and prosperous Lebanon.”

Billingslea also said Washington would help Lebanon protect its financial system from Islamic State and other militants.

Two weeks ago, the Trump administration set up a team to reinvigorate U.S. investigations into Hezbollah-linked drug trafficking.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah last week denied any involvement in drug trafficking and said Hezbollah had a very clear religious and moral stance which forbids drugs and drug trading.
…

more

NAFTA Negotiators Open Key Round of Talks; Trump Cites Progress

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

U.S., Canadian and Mexican officials opened a key round of negotiations to modernize NAFTA on Tuesday as President Donald Trump, who has regularly threatened to quit the trade pact, said the talks were going “pretty well.”

Trump, vowing to undo what he portrays as disastrous trade deals, has in recent days expressed different views of the North American Free Trade Agreement, stoking investor worries that one of the world’s largest trading blocs may be disrupted.

With time running out to address U.S. demands for major changes to the 1994 deal, officials met in a Montreal hotel for the sixth and penultimate round of talks, which are to conclude by the end of March to avoid a clash with Mexico’s elections.

“We have come to Montreal with a lot of new ideas, a lot of creative strategies to try to bridge some of the gaps in the negotiations,” Canadian chief negotiator Steve Verheul told reporters, adding that he had “high hopes” of progress.

Trump offers positive comment

Insiders say the Canadian and Mexican governments are prepared to be flexible on a U.S. demand that the amount of North American content in autos be boosted to qualify for duty-free status in NAFTA.

But Ottawa and Mexico City strongly oppose the proposal that autos produced on the continent should have 50 percent U.S. content. Differences also remain over how to address the U.S. push for changes to various dispute resolution mechanisms.

Trump, who has blamed NAFTA for the loss of U.S. jobs, told White House reporters on Tuesday the talks were going “pretty well.”

The Mexican peso immediately pared losses on his comments.

Mexico’s chief negotiator Ken Smith said he hoped progress could be made on less contentious areas such as telecommunications, anti-corruption and sanitary and phytosanitary measures.

Canada unsure about US

Many Canadian officials, however, are downbeat about the talks amid uncertainty over whether Washington really wants to negotiate.

“If you’re unsure where the other side wants to go it is really difficult to know what would please them unless you capitulate, and that’s not going to happen,” one person briefed on Ottawa’s negotiating stance said on condition of anonymity.

With NAFTA’s future up in the air, Canada is taking steps to diversify its trade. Canada currently sends 75 percent of its goods exports to the United States.

Canada joins TPP

Earlier on Tuesday, Canada and 10 other nations agreed to sign a reworked Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. The United States pulled out of an earlier version of that deal.

Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Canada Economics, said the TPP deal might give Canada “a slightly stronger hand to play in the current NAFTA negotiations.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is currently attending the World Economic Forum meeting in Switzerland to drum up investment. Next month he will spend five days in India, which Canada sees as potentially a bigger trading partner.
…

more

A Grammy Curse? Milli Vanilli’s Fab Morvan, Others Reflect

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Winning the best new artist Grammy is a goal for most breakthrough performers, but for some of its recipients, it can create pressure to match previous success or surpass it.

That’s why some feel that winning the award is a slight curse.

The Recording Academy has been known for picking the wrong best new artist winner over the years. Some of the world’s greatest musicians have lost the award, including Elton John, Elvis Costello and the Dixie Chicks. Taylor Swift lost, too, though it was understandably to Amy Winehouse. But other choices may surprise you — Macklemore & Ryan Lewis not only beat out Kendrick Lamar, but they won over Ed Sheeran.

But sometimes the Grammys gets it right: The Beatles, Bette Midler, Mariah Carey, John Legend and Adele are some of the superstars who have picked up the honor, and have followed up their wins with impressive work.

We take a look at four acts who won best new artist and what life was like afterward.

Milli Vanilli

Fab Morvan of Milli Vanilli said even before the Grammys asked the duo to return its best new artist award, the group planned to give it back.

“We didn’t sing on the record. That is 100 percent, so we wanted to give it back. It was the right thing to do,” he said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “And to this day it got twisted [and people thought] the Grammys wanted it back, when in fact we were the first to say, ‘We want to give it back.”‘

Milli Vanilli, who won the honor at the 1990 Grammys, had to famously return the award after the public learned Morvan and Rob Pilatus didn’t sing on the duo’s 1989 U.S. debut, Girl You Know It’s True.

Morvan said despite that, it was still an honor to be nominated and that he and Pilatus, who died in 1998, still put in a lot of work.

“People might say, ‘Well, you know, they didn’t sing on the record.’ But look at the rest. We were the heart and soul of Milli Vanilli. We did those 107 cities [on tour] … in eight months,” he said. “We worked hard. We worked our butts off. We entertained people.”

Milli Vanilli beat out acts like Indigo Girls, Soul II Soul, Neneh Cherry and Tone Loc for the honor. In some ways, Morvan feels winning the Grammy actually hurt the group.

“We were a target, an easy target at that. So, you know, winning the award definitely made us a major target. It pissed people off,” he said.

​Jody Watley

Winning best new artist for Jody Watley was vindication in its finest form.

“I remember reading at the time when I quit Shalamar in 1983, ‘Jody Watley’s future will probably be the most in doubt,”‘ she recalled with a laugh. “Pretty much everyone made sure that I knew that they thought I would fail. Everyone said that it would be the biggest mistake of my life, that I would live to regret it. And so … getting nominated and winning it is one of the greatest moments of my life.”

Watley had previously been nominated for a Grammy with Shalamar, so being a nominee for best new artist surprised some people. She won the honor at the 1988 show over Swing Out Sister, Cutting Crew, Terence Trent D’Arby and Breakfast Club.

“When people ask the question, it’s like, ‘Well, get over it. I was eligible and I was the best new artist.’ And I shut a lot of people up,” she said, laughing again.

Watley’s 1987 debut launched five hits, including the Top 10 pop hits, “Looking for a New Love,” “Don’t You Want Me” and “Some Kind of Lover.” She said winning didn’t create pressure for her second album, which launched three more Top 10 pop smashes.

Watley said she knows that the conversation around winning best new artist “sometimes … has a negative connotation,” but she wants to remind people that she’s “a great success story.”

The 58-year-old is currently recording music in the group SLR — Sexy Real Love — and said she could return to the Grammys.

“I was teasing the guys and I was saying, ‘Maybe we’ll make history and we’ll end up nominated for best new artist,” she said. “Because I think we would be eligible.”

​Arrested Development

Arrested Development marked history when they won best new artist in 1993, becoming the first rap act to do so.

It opened doors for hip-hop performers like Lauryn Hill, Chance the Rapper and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis to win the same honor.

“People who had never explored [hip-hop] and didn’t totally get it really got what we were bringing out,” said Speech, the lead vocalist and co-founder of the progressive rap group. “It made me proud that we were sort of like introducing hip-hop to a large audience.”

Arrested Development’s 1992 debut, 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of…, was a departure from the gangster rap that had dominated radio at the time. The album had three Top 10 pop hits, including “Mr. Wendal,” “People Everyday” and “Tennessee,” which won the group another Grammy.

But following their debut album wasn’t an easy task, Speech said.

“For our second album, the label was more in a business model thinking about quarters and when can they make the biggest impact from a first to fourth quarter standpoint, and things that have less to do with the heart [of making music],” Speech said. “So if I had a chance to do it over again, I just would have just taken more time on the second album, regardless of how it sells. It’s not even because it didn’t sell as well as the first, but just because that’s what the art deserves.”

“If you take four or five years or if you take a few months, whatever it is for you, take that time and really pour it in just like you likely did on your first project or on the project that got you best new artist,” he added.

​Debby Boone

Being named best new artist in 1978 was an “out of body experience” for Debby Boone, who had a huge hit with the song, “You Light Up My Life.”

But following up the win had some challenges.

“It did create pressure. And I think it added to the discouragement when that was not what happened, you know, if people believed in me and now I’m letting them down, a little bit of that,” she said.

Though Boone didn’t match the achievements of her debut album and single, she still released music that charted successfully and won more Grammy Awards.

But she admits she has “mixed feelings about” how things took off after her best new artist win.

“I thought everybody knew more than me. So even when I didn’t particularly like the choices that were being made on my behalf, I would tell myself, ‘These are the experts. These guys know. I don’t like this song, but I’m going to give it my best shot.’ And that’s because my success happened suddenly,” she said. “When ‘You Light Up My Life’ took off, I didn’t know which direction I wanted to go. I knew what I liked, but I didn’t trust that what I liked would be liked by other people.”

“And now I’m old enough to realize, first of all, I don’t want to spend my life doing things that I don’t believe in, or love, or feel passionate about,” the 61-year-old added. “I think the healthiest attitude at this stage of my life, and even 20 years ago, is to say, ‘It is what happened.”‘

Boone is a Grammy voter and says when looking at the best new artist nominees, she’s voting “for who I think has a talent that is most promising to continue giving us wonderful music.”

“And though I haven’t had a string of hit records, basically on the strength of that hit record, I have, for 40 years, had a very full life of performing and recording,” she said. “And I’m nothing but grateful.”

The 60th annual Grammy Awards will air live from Madison Square Garden in New York City on Sunday. Nominees for best new artist are R&B singers SZA and Khalid, pop singers Alessia Cara and Julia Michaels, and rapper Lil Uzi Vert.
…

more

New Orleans Revives 1894 Tabasco Opera 

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Love, hate and hot sauce are themes of a 19th-century comic opera being produced this week as a kickoff to New Orleans’ 300th anniversary. It’s also the 150th anniversary for Tabasco sauce and the New Orleans Opera’s 75th. 

Tabasco: a Burlesque Opera had been stuck in an attic for more than a century when conductor Paul Mauffray found a program from its 1894 tour in archives for the opera company and its predecessors. 

 

“At first I thought it couldn’t be Tabasco — that Tabasco hadn’t been around that long,” Mauffray said. But an official history of McIlhenny Co., which makes the sauce, showed that Tabasco predated the opera by 26 years, and that McIlhenny had sponsored the original tour. 

The Tabasco-making company underwrote the sold-out production running Thursday to Sunday.

Composer George Whitefield Chadwick was well-known in his day, Mauffray said, and if Tabasco had its due, “it would be the founding cornerstone of our American history in the opera. It was not just some little show that was done here once. It was the most popular American opera from the pre-20th century.” 

Opera has been a big part of New Orleans’ social and musical scene going back to the late 1700s. Mauffray was trying to learn more of its history when he found the program in a box in 2009. 

This opera might be rooted in the comical genre that brought fame to the British duo Gilbert and Sullivan. 

Commissioned by cadets

Chadwick attended a music conservatory in Leipzig, Germany, a decade after W.S. Gilbert, and probably studied under some of the same masters, Mauffray said. Chadwick was commissioned to write Tabasco in 1893 by a corps of well-to-do Army cadets in Boston. The cadets performed it in January 1894 as a fundraiser, winning critical notice for the shapely, clean-shaven legs of the young men acting women’s parts. 

It went on to more than 40 professional performances in New York. “This time, the reviewers said it sounded so much better when the women’s parts were sung by women,” Mauffray said. 

About the same time, the great Antonin Dvorak, then director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York, presented Chadwick with a national composition prize for one of his symphonies. 

Impresario Thomas Q. Seabrook acquired touring rights for Tabasco and asked McIlhenny’s permission to use its trademark. John Avery McIlhenny, eldest son of the hot sauce’s creator, agreed, and provided free samples for the audience. 

“As far as I know, that’s the earliest we gave out miniature bottles,” company historian Shane Bernard said. 

“We’re still making those minis today,” company president and CEO Tony Simmons said. “I think we did about 30 million of them in 2017.” 

Lengthy run

The show played in at least 48 cities, from Dallas to Rhode Island, when Chadwick realized he wasn’t getting royalties, Mauffray said. 

Chadwick had Seabrook arrested and took back his music. When asked about a revival in the early 1900s, Chadwick — who had a composition then being performed by the New York Philharmonic under Gustav Mahler — declined, writing that comic opera was no longer his style, according to Mauffray. 

Mauffray tried for years to locate the opera. In 2012, he got access to a box that Chadwick’s descendants were sending to be archived. He found instrumental parts and three different scripts. Reconstruction took “a lot of detective work and piecework and bits and pieces had to be rewritten,” Mauffray said. 

 

The show is directed by Pacific Opera Project director Josh Shaw, who’s known for reimagining Mozart’s Escape from the Seraglio as a Star Trek episode and for Puccini’s La Boheme: AKA “The Hipsters.” 

The opera’s wacky plot involves traders, a harem girl named Fatima and her older counterpart Hasbeena, a sultan obsessed with spicy food, and Dennis O’Grady, a drunk who impersonates a French chef. A bottle of Tabasco saves O’Grady’s life, trader Marco falls for Fatima, and trader Lola for O’Grady. There’s also a boatload of dancing girls and a plot to assassinate the sultan by putting a bomb in a fancy chest he believes to hold Tabasco. 

The plot may seem outlandish to modern audiences, but a souvenir some spectators will get at the show has withstood the test of time: mini bottles of Tabasco. 
…

more

Survey: US Mayors View Climate Change as Pressing Urban Issue

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

U.S. mayors increasingly view climate change as a pressing urban issue, so much so that many advocate policies that could inconvenience residents or even hurt their cities financially.

The annual survey of big-city executives, released Tuesday by the Boston University Initiative on Cities, also reflected the nation’s sharp political divide. Ninety-five percent of Democratic mayors who responded believed climate change was caused by human activities, a view shared by only half of Republican mayors. 

A clear majority of mayors were prepared to confront President Donald Trump’s administration over climate change and felt their cities could be influential in counteracting the policies of the Republican president, who at times has called global warming a hoax and last year withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate accord.

“A striking 68 percent of mayors agree that cities should play a strong role in reducing the effects of climate change, even if it means sacrificing revenues or increasing expenditures,” a report accompanying the survey stated.

Boston mayor started survey

In all, 115 mayors of cities with at least 75,000 residents answered the fourth annual survey named for Thomas Menino, a longtime Democratic mayor of Boston who founded the university program before his death in 2014. The survey was sponsored in part by The Rockefeller Foundation and Citigroup.

Organizers of the survey declined to release a list of the 115 mayors who responded, citing confidentially agreements. According to the report, nearly two-thirds of the mayors were Democrats and the cities had an average population of 233,000.

The survey cited the availability and affordability of housing as the single most pressing concern of mayors, followed closely by climate change and municipal budget pressures caused in part by federal and state cuts. 

A foreword to the report, signed by Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Betsy Price, the Republican mayor of Fort Worth, Texas, argued that cities can exert formidable influence over U.S. and global policies. 

“At a time when the national conversation is divisive, cities offer a sense of hope and shared identity,” the mayors said. 

Democrats support changes

Sixty-eight percent of mayors said they would be willing to expend additional resources or sacrifice revenue to combat climate change. 

Democrats were more than twice as likely as Republicans to promote environmental policies that might inconvenience motorists in their cities, and almost three times as likely to support entering into regional climate pacts or networks. Yet only 26 percent of Democrats and 5 percent of Republican mayors were eager to slap any costly new regulations on the private sector. 

The survey found that attitudes about climate change differed geographically as well as politically. For example, 90 percent of all Eastern mayors and 97 percent from the Midwest blamed human activities for climate change, compared to 70 percent from Southern cities.

 

 

 
…

more

Drug Companies Told to Do More to Tackle ‘Superbug’ Crisis

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Drugmakers’ response to the threat posed by “superbugs” remains patchy even after years of warnings, according to the first analysis of individual companies’ efforts to tackle the antibiotic resistance crisis.

The rise of drug-resistant bacteria is a growing threat to modern medicine with the emergence of infections resistant to even last-resort antibiotics — a situation made worse in recent years by overuse of antibiotics and cutbacks in drug research.

New analysis by the nonprofit Access to Medicine Foundation (AMF), published Tuesday, found that GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson were doing more than most among large research-based pharmaceutical companies to tackle the problem, while Mylan led the way among generic drugmakers and Entasis was top among biotechs.

Overall, GSK led the field with 55 antimicrobial pipeline projects, including 13 vaccines.

But action taken by such companies is only the start of what could be done to address the problem, which former Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill in 2014 estimated could cause 10 million deaths a year worldwide by 2050.

“The whole of modern medicine depends on being able to control and treat infections,” said Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust charity. “Perhaps the most exciting area of medicine at the moment, immunotherapies for cancer, is impossible unless you can control infection.”

‘Definitely more’ should be done

While more experimental antibiotics are now moving through development than a few years ago, the number is still down from what it was during the 1980s and 1990s. And a lot more work needs to be done to ensure appropriate use of medicines — both new ones and the thousands of metric tons of older pills churned out each year by generic companies.

“There’s definitely more that all companies can do,” said Jayasree Iyer, executive director of AMF, which published the analysis at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. “We need to strengthen the research and development pipeline, and when new products reach the market, we need to ensure that they are used in a conservative way so that misuse and overuse is limited.”

There are now 28 experimental antibiotics in late-stage development against critical pathogens, but only two of these are supported by plans to ensure they can be both made accessible and used wisely if they reach the market.

The AMF said four companies — GSK, Shionogi, Pfizer and Novartis — had taken steps to separate sales representatives’ bonuses from the volume of antibiotics sold, but that much more needed to be done across the industry to counter overuse.

Another under-recognized problem is the pollution caused by mass production of antibiotics, due to lax oversight of wastewater runoff.

In India’s Hyderabad region, for example, the presence of hundreds of drug factories and inadequate water treatment has left lakes and rivers laced with antibiotics, making the area a giant petri dish for anti-microbial resistance.

The AMF urged multinational drugmakers to do more to ensure that their suppliers of bulk antibiotic ingredients were complying with rigorous wastewater standards.
…

more

China Online Quiz Craze Lures Prize Seekers, Tech Giants

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

It seems like a game everyone wins: Some of China’s biggest tech companies, looking to hook in new consumers, are using cash prizes to draw millions of contenders to mobile-based online quiz shows.

Up to 6 million people at a time log into the free, live games on their smartphones to answer a series of rapid-fire questions in an elimination battle, with those remaining sharing the prize money.

Over the weekend, search engine giant Baidu and video game maker NetEase launched their own online shows, joining news feed platform Toutiao, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd-owned UCWeb and Wang Sicong, the scion of Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin.

But how they will cash in on the games and stay on the right side of government censors might prove to be a tricky question.

The trivia games have drawn some controversy, heightened by a broader crackdown on online content during the last year under President Xi Jinping, from livestreams and blogs to a campaign against internet addiction.

This month, one quiz show, “Millions Winner,” backed by internet security company Qihoo 360, apologized after it was chastised by a regulator for listing Taiwan and Hong Kong, over which China claims sovereignty, as independent countries in a question.

How firms will monetize the craze is also not yet clear, though some companies, such as online retailer JD.com, have already jumped on the trend, sponsoring shows to help raise their profiles. Many of the games show ads to players during the shows.

“If you ask me why I do this, to be honest, I don’t really know if I can make money,” Zhou Hongyi, chairman of Qihoo, said at an event where he presented a contestant with a 1 million yuan ($156,115.84) prize check two weeks ago. “But from a user’s perspective, I think this is really fun.”

The quiz mania underlines the fierce appetite of China’s consumers for internet entertainment, a trend helping drive billions of dollars of investment into digital news portals, online gaming, internet advertising and television content.

“I heard about this game from a friend who won 1,700 yuan in one day. I immediately decided to join up myself,” Wang Ting, a 26-year-old graduate student in Qingdao, told Reuters. She now spends three hours each day on her phone playing the games.

Uncertain future

Questions, read by a live host, might include: “From which country were pineapples imported to China in the 16th century?” “In which dynasty was the lamb hot pot invented?” or “How many fingers does Mickey Mouse have?”

Contestants get 10 seconds — a time frame designed cut out cheating — to select the correct answer from a choice of three.

Winnings can be up to 3 million yuan per game, but are often split between many winners.

Toutiao parent Bytedance said that “millions of our users” had taken part in its live quiz “Million Dollar Hero” since the show launched at the start of January. It also has a tougher “Hero Game” with harder questions and bigger prizes.

“We’ve been running for just two weeks, so it’s still in the very early stages, but it’s encouraging to see how the game has taken off across the country, and with all age groups,” the company said in a statement to Reuters.

Toutiao, a highly popular news feed app, was valued at around $20 billion in a fundraising last year, sources close to the company told Reuters.

Raymond Wang, managing partner at Beijing law firm Anli Partners, said the shows were a “relatively low-cost way to get to users,” but cautioned there were political and technical risks.

Wang Ran, a prominent investor and head of Beijing-based private investment bank CEC Capital Group, posed a question on his WeChat account about the future of the online quiz show trend.

“A) Growing numbers will jump into the market. B) Someone will win 10 million yuan in one go. C) Authorities will strictly crack down on it. 10 seconds. Go!”
…

more

US Health Official Urges Flu Vaccinations as Pediatric Deaths Mount

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Of the 30 U.S. children who have died from the flu this season, some 85 percent likely will not have been vaccinated, said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, who urged Americans to get flu shots amid one of the most severe flu seasons in years.

“My message is, if you haven’t gotten a vaccine, please get a vaccine. Also, please get your children vaccinated,” said Fitzgerald, who is urging citizens “to take every advantage that you can to protect yourself.”

The dominant strain during this flu season is an especially nasty type called influenza A (H3N2) that in seasons past has been linked with severe disease and death, especially in the elderly and young. This year’s seasonal flu epidemic is especially severe.

In past flu seasons, between 80 and 85 percent of children who have died from the flu had not gotten a flu vaccine that season, the agency said in an email.

In its latest report, the CDC said the virus is present in every state, with 32 states reporting severe flu activity.

Although the vaccine is only estimated to be about 30 percent effective against the H3N2 strain, it has been shown in studies to reduce severity and duration if people do become infected, said Dr. Dan Jernigan, director of the influenza division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fitzgerald conceded in a telephone interview that reports that the flu vaccine in Australia was only 10 percent effective may have caused people to think the vaccine would not be worth the trouble.

Fitzgerald said the agency’s flu division has been on the job during the three-day federal government shutdown. Senators on Monday reached a deal to keep the government funded through Feb. 8.

Studies have shown that even a vaccine that has lower overall effectiveness can decrease the number of days spent in hospital, duration of the flu and the degree of symptoms.

“That helps support the point of getting a vaccine,” Jernigan said.

Fitzgerald said the flu vaccine and antiviral drugs used to fight the flu are widely available across the country, noting that people can go to the CDC website and enter their zip code to find the nearest flu clinics with vaccines. 

Fitzgerald also recommended that people frequently wash their hands or use hand sanitizer, avoid those who are sick or coughing, and carry disinfectant wipes.

The CDC does not have numbers for adult deaths from the flu because adult flu is not a reportable disease in all U.S. states. But she said North Carolina, which collects such data, has reported 42 adult flu deaths this season.

Official estimates from the CDC are expected at the end of the current season, based on a calculation from hospitals and states reporting data to the agency.

In the 2014/2015 flu season, in which the H3N2 strain was also the leading strain, there were an estimated 35.6 million cases, 710,000 hospitalizations and 56,000 deaths. At this point, it is not clear whether the current flu season will surpass those estimates, Jernigan said.
…

more

Legendary South African Trumpeter Hugh Masekela Dies

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Hugh Masekela, the trumpeter, composer and anti-apartheid activist known as the “father of South African jazz” has died at the age of 78 in Johannesburg.

A statement by released by his family Tuesday said Masekela, affectionately called “Bra Hugh,” passed away “after a protracted and courageous battle with prostate cancer.” He announced last October that he was being treated for the disease, which was first diagnosed in 2008. 

Masekela’s five-decade career began in earnest in the 1950s, when he helped create the Johannesburg jazz scene as a member of the bebop sextet Jazz Epistles, but fled South Africa in the 1960s to spend the next three decades in exile.

He befriended American singer and activist Harry Belafonte, and he increasingly used his music to protest the indignities and repression of white-minority rule in his homeland. Among his better known protest tunes were “Soweto Blues,” and “Bring Him Back Home,” an anthem demanding the release of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela from prison. 

Masekela scored an international number-one hit in 1968 with the breezy tune “Grazing in the Grass.” He later collaborated with American pop star Paul Simon in the 1980s. He was briefly married in the 1960s to Miriam Makeba, the legendary South African singer and activist.

South African President Jacob Zuma praised Masekela in a statement Tuesday, saying he “kept the torch of freedom alive” through his music, and that “his contribution to the struggle for liberation will never be forgotten.”

Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa wrote on Twitter that “Bra Hugh was one of the great architects of Afro-Jazz and he uplifted the soul of our nation through his timeless music.”
…

more