04/06/2018 | UPONSOFT

Trump Administration Mulls Stiffer Rules for Auto Imports

By Uponbiz | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Business

The Trump administration is considering ways to require imported automobiles to meet stricter environmental standards in order to protect U.S. carmakers, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Responding to the story, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Donald Trump “will promote free, fair and reciprocal trade practices to grow the U.S. economy and continue to [bring] jobs and manufacturers back to the U.S.”

Citing unnamed senior administration and industry officials, the Journal said Trump had asked several agencies to pursue plans to use existing laws to subject foreign-made cars to stiff emission standards.

It appears such nontariff barriers could have a greater potential effect proportionately on European automakers, which collectively import a greater percentage of cars from plants outside the U.S., according to sales figures from Autodata.

In comparison, Japanese and Korean brands made about 70 percent of the vehicles they sold last year in the United States at North American plants. European brands built only 30 percent in North America.

The White House initiative was still in the planning stage, with officials at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency working to craft a legal justification for the policy, the paper said. It said there were hurdles to its implementation, including opposition from some in the administration.

The EPA and the Commerce Department, which the newspaper said was also involved in the effort, did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters. Neither did representatives for Ford, General Motors or Fiat Chrysler.

This story was written by Reuters.
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Trump Dismisses Fears of Trade War With China as Threats Ramp Up

By Uponbiz | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Business

U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration said Friday that the United States was not engaged in a trade war with China, even as Trump threatened to impose tariffs on an additional $100 billion worth of Chinese goods and Beijing warned it was willing to fight back.

“This is just a proposed idea, which will be vetted by USTR [the U.S. trade representative], and then open for public comment, so nothing has happened, nothing has been executed,” said White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow amid growing concerns about escalating rhetoric between Washington and Beijing.

The economic adviser said Beijing’s theft of intellectual property was “at the root” of U.S. concerns and added “we can’t allow them [China] to steal our technology, because when they steal our technology, they are stealing the guts of the American future.”

Leaders have good relationship

The adviser stressed Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping have a good relationship, and “ongoing talks may solve a lot of problems, but we are serious. I just really underscore this, we are serious.”

The White House blamed China for trade practices it said were illegal and unfair.

“China created this problem, and the president is trying to put pressure on them to fix this, and take back some of the terrible actions that they’ve had in the last several decades,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders during a briefing on Friday.

The U.S. and China are in routine contact, but “this is a negotiation period, that’s why it doesn’t happen immediately, and there’s a process, and we’re going through that process,” said Sanders.

China offers warning

Meanwhile, Beijing showed no intention of backing down.

“China is already fully prepared. If the United States announces an additional $100 billion list of tariffs, we will not hesitate to immediately make a fierce counterstrike. We are not ruling out any options,” said China’s Commerce Ministry spokesman, Gao Feng.

“Under these conditions, it’s even more impossible for both sides to conduct any negotiations on this issue,” Gao added.

In a Twitter post Friday morning, Trump continued to protest China’s trade practices and the World Trade Organization:

On Thursday, Trump announced he had instructed the U.S. trade representative to consider whether tariffs on another $100 billion of Chinese goods would be appropriate after China issued a list of U.S. goods, including soybeans and small aircraft, worth $50 billion for possible tariff hikes.  The United States had proposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods earlier this week.

Last month, after a monthslong investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, the U.S. trade representative determined that China had repeatedly engaged in unfair trade practices to obtain America’s intellectual property and pressure technology transfer from U.S. companies to Chinese entities.

Tariffs a tactic?

Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics, told VOA it was unclear when and whether the threatened tariffs would be imposed.

“It seems likely the tariffs are being used as a negotiating tactic to try to get concessions from the Chinese side in terms of market access for U.S. firms and protection of its intellectual property, so there’s still a possibility that these tariffs will never come into force,” he noted.

While it was not a surprising the White House pushed back against China’s retaliatory threats, some experts were surprised by how swiftly it did, according to Riley Walters, Asia economy and technology policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

Walters cautioned it was a risky move to use tariff threats as a negotiating tactic because it can affect lives and income of Americans.

Expect more rhetoric

If the tariffs go into effect, “what it could mean is both increasing cost for American consumers, but also an uncompetitive edge for American exporters to China. If you are a soybean producer, and if your goods go up 25 percent in China, then you are less price competitive than other exporters to China of soybeans,” Walters said.

Walters expects more rhetoric between the White House and China in the coming weeks. Evans-Pritchard predicted that if the USTR published another list of goods worth $100 billion to be subjected to tariffs, China would respond with the same measures.

“Once we started talking about $150 billion — which would be what’s on the cards, given the $50 billion existing tariffs plus $100 billion proposed — basically that is all of China’s goods imported from the U.S. So it will start looking elsewhere to retaliate,” Evans-Pritchard said.

This story was written by VOA’s Peggy Chang. Jingxun Li of VOA’s Mandarin service contributed to this report.

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Trade War Fears Send US Stocks Down Again

By Uponbiz | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Business

U.S. stocks plunged again Friday over increasing concerns about a trade war between the United States and China.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 572 points by the close, shedding 2.3 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500 dropped nearly 2.2 percent, while the NASDAQ fell nearly 2.3 percent at the end of trading.

Earlier Friday, President Donald Trump continued to protest China’s trade practices after threatening China on Thursday with increased tariffs on $100 billion worth of additional goods.

In a twitter post Friday, Trump said, “China, which is a great economic power, is considered a Developing Nation within the World Trade Organization. They therefore get tremendous perks and advantages, especially over the U.S. Does anybody think this is fair. We were badly represented. The WTO is unfair to U.S.”

China’s commerce ministry said in a statement Friday that if Washington persisted in what Beijing described as protectionism, China would “dedicate itself to the end and at any cost and will definitely fight back firmly.”

Since the start of this week, the United States and China have been engaging in a tit-for-tat trade spat.

Early in the week, the United States proposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods. China then said it would impose tariff hikes on $50 billion worth of U.S. goods, including soybeans and small aircraft. On Thursday, Trump announced he had instructed the U.S. trade representative to consider whether tariffs on another $100 billion worth of Chinese goods would be appropriate.

‘China created this problem’

The White House blamed China on Friday for trade practices it said were illegal and unfair.

Despite Trump’s threats for more sanctions, he has insisted the U.S. is not engaged in a trade dispute with the Asian nation.

U.S. stocks also were affected this past Monday by Trump’s new verbal attack on giant online retailer Amazon.

Since Trump started his criticism of Amazon, the company has lost more than $37 billion in market value.
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Rice Breeders Report Huge Productivity Gains

By Uponsci | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Science

The science behind the grain that feeds half the world may have taken a big leap forward.

Scientists are reporting the biggest improvements in rice productivity in decades.

If the results hold up in further tests, it could greatly increase supplies of a critical food staple at a time when the global population is growing rapidlyResearchers found a version of a gene that increased the number of branches in the flowering part of the plant.

The team used conventional breeding to introduce this gene version into five rice varieties. The new strains produced from 28 to 85 percent more rice than their parents.

That’s a huge increase, says University of Arkansas rice breeder Xueyan Sha.

“If we can achieve, say, 6 percent, we can probably consider it a great achievement,” Sha said.

Sha was not part of the new study, published in the journal Scientific Reports.

He cautions that it’s a small-scale, controlled experiment, and it’s not clear how the results will hold up in farmers’ fields.

Rice yields have not improved much since the big gains of the “Green Revolution” of the 1960s, aimed at boosting grain production.

Experts say big increases in food production will be necessary to feed the additional 2 billion or so people expected on the planet by 2050.

Not all rice varieties tested by the scientists produced the same hefty gains. That’s another reason for caution, notes rice geneticist Shannon Pinson with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“There’s something exciting here,” Pinson said. “I don’t think it’s as exciting as Green Revolution caliber.”

New varieties will be available to farmers in two to four years.

This story was written by VOA’s Steve Baragona.
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Top 5 Songs for Week Ending April 7

By Uponent | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Entertainment

We’ve gathered the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending April 7, 2018.

While we don’t get any newcomers this week, we do have a fight brewing for the championship.

Number 5: Post Malone & Ty Dolla $ign “Psycho”

Let’s open in fifth place, where Post Malone and Ty Dolla $ign hold with “Psycho.” While we await Post’s next album “Beerbongs & Bentleys,” we do think we have some information about its length. Post’s manager recently posted an Instagram photo of a track list on a white board. It was numbered to 18 … meaning there will likely be 18 songs on the new set. Track number one was Post’s chart-topping hit “Rockstar.” No word on a release date, however.

Number 4: Bruno Mars & Cardi B “Finesse”

Bruno Mars and Cardi B lose a slot, as “Finesse” falls to fourth place. On March 26, Cardi finally let us know about her debut album. Titled “Invasion Of Privacy,” it arrives April 6.

Initially set to drop in October, she pushed it back multiple times. The cover art is right out of the 1980s, and if you want to see it, go to our Facebook page, VOA1TheHits.

Number 3: Ed Sheeran “Perfect”

Ed Sheeran also steps back this week, as “Perfect” falls a slot to No. 3. Two songwriters are suing Ed for copyright infringement: They say his song “The Rest Of Our Life,” which Ed wrote for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, steals elements of their 2014 song “When I Found You.” On April 2, Ed filed documents denying any resemblance between the two songs and calling their claims baseless. The judge has yet to decide, but you can compare the two songs by going to our Facebook page, VOA1TheHits.

Number 2: Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line “Meant To Be”

Up two slots to second place go Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line with their runaway country smash “Meant To Be.”

It also leads Billboard’s Hot Country Songs list for a massive 18th week. This is a new countdown high for both acts: Bebe previously hit seventh place with “Me, Myself, and I” featuring G-Eazy, while Florida Georgia Line made it to fourth place with their debut pop hit, “Cruise.”

Number 1: Drake “God’s Plan”

Drake makes it nine weeks at No. 1 with “God’s Plan,” and he’s dropping hints about a new album.

In January, Drake released a two-song EP titled “Scary Hours,” and more music may be on the way. On April 1, the Canadian rapper posted an Instagram photo captioned, “You can see the album hours under my eyes.”

Our time is done for today, but we’ll return next week with a new lineup.
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Consumer Groups: Facebook’s Facial Recognition Violates Privacy Rights

By Uponsil | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Facebook violates its users’ privacy rights through the use of its facial recognition software, according to consumer groups led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Their complaint to the federal government focuses on the use of Facebook software that identifies people in photographs that are uploaded to its site.

A complaint filed Friday by a coalition of consumer organizations with Federal Trade Commission said the social media giant “routinely scans photos for biometric facial matches without the consent of the image subject.”

The complaint says the company tries to improve its facial recognition prowess by deceptively encouraging users the participate in the process of identifying people in photographs.

“This unwanted, unnecessary, and dangerous identification of individuals undermines user privacy, ignores the explicit preferences of Facebook users, and is contrary to law in several state and many parts of the world.”

The groups maintain there is little users can do to prevent images of their faces from being in a social media system like Facebook’s. They contend facial scanning can be abused by authoritarian governments, a key argument considering Facebook may be required to provide user information to governments.

The complaint is the latest in a string of privacy-related issues the FTC is already investigating, including charges it allowed the personal information of 87 million users to be improperly harvested by Cambridge Analytica, the British consulting firm which was hired by U.S. President Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Until Thursday, Facebook had not said how many accounts had been harvested by Cambridge Analytica. Facebook has also been hesitant to explain how the company’s product might have been used by Russian-supported entities to affect the U.S. presidential election outcome.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify next week before two congressional committees.
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Cardi B Caps Breakthrough Year with Debut Album Release

By Uponent | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Entertainment

The anticipation around Cardi B’s debut album has been scorching hot, so when the breakthrough artist finally debuted the full album at a party late Thursday, she told the DJ to make sure the sound level was perfect.

“DJ, make it a little loud ’cause I don’t feel it in my bones,” she said after the second track played, while the DJ worked on the sound.

That’s when Cardi B’s silly and likable personality — which has helped her skyrocket on social media and the pop charts — shined brightly. She went into karaoke-mode, singing some of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” even getting the audience of music industry players in New York City to participate.

But the DJ needed two more minutes.

“Two minutes? What the [heck] I’m supposed to do with two minutes? I’m running out of jokes. I’m running out of entertainment,” she said, then reminded the crowd that she’s performing on Saturday Night Live this weekend.

Cardi B, the 25-year-old Bronx rapper, released her major-label debut album, “Invasion of Privacy,” on Friday. It comes 10 months after she dropped “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves),” the ubiquitous rap song that topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in October, making her one of three females to top the pop charts with a song last year.

When that Grammy-nominated song came up during the listening, she skipped it: “I know you heard it 1,000 times. I put it on my album because that’s the song that made me rich. … That song changed my life.”

The next track, “Be Careful,” was released last week and was met with controversy when an older version of the song by rapper Pardison appeared online. Some of the lyrics were directly used on Cardi B’s song and some wrote that she stole the song, though Pardison was listed as a co-writer on the track.

“I don’t know where Pardison is at, but Pardison is a big part of the song. You know, I heard the record and I was like, ‘…I want that record for me. So, you know, I flipped it and I made it into a girl version,” she said.

“I don’t give [expletive], ghostwriter, co-writer, [people], I don’t give a [expletive],” she said. “What you need to do is ask your favorite rappers about their ghostwriters.”

Thursday’s event was tightly packed, as attendees bumped shoulder to shoulder while dancing to Cardi B’s new songs and drinking out of large red cups. The scene outside was similar as people waited in the cold to get inside the white-hot event, then were met with the heavy smell of marijuana as the door opened and some people were allowed to enter.

Bartenders and waitresses at Common Ground mimicked Cardi B’s style: They dressed in the short, green wig and black-and-white plaid shirt Cardi B sports on her new album cover.

“Isn’t it funny? This is the spot I first met my man at,” said Cardi B, referring to her fiance Offset of the multi-platinum rap trio Migos.

“Thank you everybody for coming out. I worked so hard on this album. … This music industry [stuff] is a roller coaster, an emotional roller coaster. It’s more crazier than the streets,” she said.

“Invasion of Privacy” also includes the hit “Bartier Cardi,” while Chance the Rapper, SZA, J. Balvin, Bad Bunny, Kehlani and YG make guest appearances. Cardi B, who developed a following on social media after stripping and appeared on the reality show Love and Hip Hop, has also had major success with the songs “Finesse” with Bruno Mars, “No Limit” with G-Eazy,” and MotorSport” with Migos and Nicki Minaj.

“In barely a year this woman has broken so many records. This girl has so many Hot 100 [hits]. … She’s worked her [butt] off,” said Julie Greenwald, the chairman and COO of Atlantic Records, home to Ed Sheeran, Missy Elliott, Kelly Clarkson, Coldplay and Sia.

“We are so proud of this album,” she added, before calling Cardi B “the first lady of Atlantic Records.”
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Broadway’s Lin-Manuel Miranda Has Shingles, Quarantined From Baby Son

By Uponent | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Entertainment

Lin-Manuel Miranda thought he had a migraine. It turns out the Broadway star really had shingles.

Miranda tweeted on Thursday that he had been diagnosed with shingles, saying he it caught early and that he had been quarantined from his 8-week-old son.

The Associated Press had reported that he also said on Twitter his ophthalmologist had blurred his eyes and that he was wearing a mask during treatment. But Miranda tweeted Friday that his mask reference and accompanying “Phantom of the Opera” gif were a joke, and his blurred eyes a part of his medical exam. He tweeted, “Sorry. I’m fine. Not wearing a mask.”

Miranda said he was staying with parents nearby.

The 38-year-old wrote the book, music and lyrics and starred in the Broadway smash “Hamilton.”
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Trump to Skip Annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner

By Uponent | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Entertainment

President Donald Trump, a constant critic of what he calls “fake news,” will skip the White House Correspondents’ Dinner for a second year in a row.

White House Correspondents’ Association president Margaret Talev said in a statement Friday that the “White House has informed us that the president does not plan to participate in this year’s dinner but that he will actively encourage members of the executive branch to attend.”

Trump had said he “probably won’t do it” in an interview on the “Bernie and Sid” radio show on 77 WABC Radio that was taped Thursday and aired Friday.

Saying the press is “so bad” and “so fake,” Trump said: “I want to get it straightened out with the press before I do it.”

Talev said White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will attend to represent the administration at the head table.

The annual dinner, a fundraiser for college scholarships and a venue for reporting awards, mixes politicians, journalists and celebrities and is typically attended by the president and first lady. Remarks by a comedian, often roasting the president, and a humorous address by the president himself, often roasting the press and political opponents, have highlighted the event, which C-SPAN has carried live.

Trump skipped the event last year, holding a rally in Pennsylvania instead. Prior to that, Ronald Reagan was the most recent president to skip the annual dinner, as he was recovering after being shot during an assassination attempt.

If he attended, Trump would likely be a prime target of jokes, with the camera showing his reaction to one-liners. Before he entered politics, the former reality star attended the event and in 2011 was on hand — and appeared humiliated — as former President Barack Obama lobbed joke after joke at his expense.

Trump did attend the annual Gridiron Club Dinner earlier this year, delivering a speech at the annual white-tie affair featuring journalists and officials. At that event, Trump offered a series of good-natured one-liners in his remarks.

Among his quips: “I was very excited to receive this invitation and ruin your evening in person. That’s why I accepted.”
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Facebook: Up to 2.7 Million EU Users Affected by Data-Mining

By Uponsil | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Silicon Valley

The European Union said Friday Facebook has told it that up to 2.7 million people in the 28-nation bloc may have been victim of improper data sharing involving political data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica.

EU spokesman Christian Wigand said EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova will have a telephone call with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg early next week to address the massive data leaks.

The EU and Facebook will be looking at what changes the social media giant needs to make to better protect users and how the U.S. company must adapt to new EU data protection rules.

Wigand said that EU data protection authorities will discuss over the coming days “a strong coordinated approach” on how to deal with the Facebook investigation.

Separately, Italy’s competition authority opened an investigation Friday into Facebook for allegedly misleading practices following revelations that the social network sold users’ data without consent.

Authority chairman Giovanni Pitruzzella told Sky News24 that the investigation will focus on Facebook’s claims on its home page that the service is free, without revealing that it makes money off users’ data.

The investigation comes as Italian consumer advocate group Codacons prepares a U.S. class action against Facebook on behalf of Italians whose data was mined by Cambridge Analytica. Codacons said just 57 Italians downloaded the Cambridge Analytica app, but that an estimated 214,000 Italians could be affected because the data mined extended to also the users’ friends.

A top Facebook privacy official is scheduled to meet with the authority later this month.

This story was earlier corrected to show that the EU call will take place with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg not with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
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As Trump Tweets, Amazon Seeks to Expand its Business Empire

By Uponsil | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Amazon is spending millions of dollars on lobbying as the global online retailer seeks to expand its reach into a swath of industries that President Donald Trump’s broadsides haven’t come close to hitting.

Trump’s attacks over the last week targeted what Amazon is best known for: rapidly shipping just about any product you can imagine to your door. But the company CEO Jeff Bezos founded more than two decades ago is now a sprawling empire that sells groceries in brick-and-mortar stores, hosts the online services of other companies and federal offices in a network of data centers, and even recently branched into health care.

Amazon relies on a nearly 30-member in-house lobbying team that’s four times as large as it was three years ago as well as outside firms to influence the lawmakers and federal regulators who can help determine its success. The outside roster includes a retired congressman from Washington state who was a senior member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee when he stepped down.

Overall, Amazon spent $15.6 million on lobbying in 2017.

“Amazon is just not on an even playing field,” Trump told reporters Thursday aboard Air Force One. “They have a tremendous lobbying effort, in addition to having The Washington Post, which is as far as I’m concerned another lobbyist. But they have a big lobbying effort, one of the biggest, frankly, one of the biggest.”

Bezos owns the Post. He and the newspaper have previously declared that Bezos isn’t involved in any journalistic decisions.

Earlier in the week, Trump alleged that Amazon is bilking the U.S. Postal Service for being its “delivery boy,” a doubtful claim about a contract that’s actually been judged profitable for the post office. And he has charged that Amazon pays “little or no taxes,” a claim that may have merit. Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said in February that Amazon “has built its business model on tax avoidance.” Amazon reported $5.6 billion of U.S. profits in 2017 “and didn’t pay a dime of federal income taxes on it,” according to Gardner.

The company declined to comment on Trump’s remarks and did not immediately respond to a request for comment about its lobbying operations.

Amazon has grown rapidly since it launched in 1995 as a site that sold books. It has changed the way people buy paper towels, diapers or just about anything else. And its ambitions go far beyond online shopping: its Alexa voice assistant is in tablets, cars and its Echo devices; it runs the Whole Foods grocery chain; the company produces movies and TV shows and it designs its own brands of furniture and clothing.

The company is in the midst of launching an independent business with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway that is seeking to lower health care costs for employees at the three companies. Given the three players’ outsize influence the alliance has the potential to shake up how Americans shop for health care and the initiative sent a shudder through the industry when it was announced in January.

Amazon Web Services is angling for a much larger share of the federal government’s market for cloud computing, which allows massive amounts of data to be stored and managed on remote servers. The CIA signed a $600 million deal with Amazon in 2013 to build a system to share secure data across the U.S. intelligence community.

A partner of Amazon Web Services, the Virginia-based Rean Cloud LLC, in February scored what appeared to be a lucrative cloud computing contract from the Pentagon. But the contract, initially projected to be worth as much as $950 million, was scaled back to $65 million after Amazon’s competitors complained about the award.

Lobbying disclosure records filed with the House and Senate show Amazon is engaged on a wide variety of other issues, from trade to transportation to telecommunications. The company also lobbied lawmakers and federal agencies on the testing and operation of unmanned aerial vehicles. Amazon has been exploring the use of drones for deliveries, but current federal rules restrict flying beyond the operator’s line of sight.

The $15.6 million Amazon spent on lobbying last year was $2.6 million more than in 2016, according to the disclosure records. The bulk of the money — $12.8 million — went for Amazon’s in-house lobbying team. The nearly 30-member unit is led by Brian Huseman, who worked previously as chief of staff at the Federal Trade Commission and a Justice Department trial attorney.

As most large corporations do, Amazon also employs outside lobbying firms — as many as 14 in 2017.

In Amazon’s corner is former Washington congressman Norm Dicks of the firm Van Ness Feldman. Dicks was serving as the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee when he ended his 36-year congressional career in 2013. He represented the company on information technology matters and “issues related to cloud computing usage by the federal government,” according to the records, which show Van Ness Feldman earned $160,000 from Amazon last year.

Amazon brought aboard four new firms in 2017, according to the records. Newcomers Ballard Partners, BGR Government Affairs, Brownstein Hyatt, and McGuireWoods Consulting lobbied for Amazon on transportation, taxes, drones and other issues.

This story was written by the Associated Press.
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New Service Robots Gaining Popularity in Europe

By Uponsil | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Robots are constantly adding new skills to their repertoire. In Italy, the first dedicated interactive service robot, “Robby the hotel concierge” and his brother, “Cayuki the car salesman,” are taking the country by storm with their technological efficiencies. In Finland, another kind of robot – “Elias” is thrilling classrooms with his language and dancing skills. As VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports, the next generation of robots is ready to serve, educate and entertain the masses.
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Paris Restaurant Keeps Refugee Dreams Alive

By Uponbiz | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Business

As a banking executive, Nabil Attar was a frequent business class flyer, heading to Europe so often his family had rolling visas. But his last trip was dramatically different — it was aboard a packed refugee boat that barely survived its Mediterranean crossing.

Today, Attar is back in business — not crunching numbers in his native Syria, but stirring up potfuls of lentil soup and hummus at a newly opened Paris restaurant.

“In Damascus, I had this dream” to be a professional chef, Attar said. “But when you have a very good job, it’s hard to change your life. So, I arrived here with zero. I thought, ‘Why not follow my dream?’”

Launched by a pair of epicureans with a mission, the month-old La Residence restaurant is the latest addition to a broader scheme to showcase the talents of refugee chefs and help them better integrate into their adopted countries. Known as the Refugee Food Festival, the scheme has already been rolled out in more than a dozen European cities, with support from the U.N. Refugee Agency, UNHCR. Now for the first time, it will cross the Atlantic in June, making its debut in New York and San Francisco.

“Food is a powerful medium to connect people — everyone is making it all over the world,” said Marine Mandrila, who founded the new restaurant and the festival with her partner, Louis Martin. “It’s something that gathers people and also tells our intimate story, of where we come from.”

There is also a practical element, she added. in food-loving France, there are thousands of restaurant job vacancies.

Hardening laws and attitudes

The refugee food movement comes amid hardening laws and attitudes toward asylum-seekers in Europe. From Italy to Poland, anti-immigrant parties are surging, and xenophobic discourse is on the rise — even as the number of asylum seekers crossing the Mediterranean has actually plummeted over two years.

The falling figures do not exist everywhere. In France, the centrist government of President Emmanuel Macron has proposed legislation that would toughen immigration and asylum laws, after the country registered a record 100,000 asylum seekers in 2017. While the government argues the measures will speed up processing of asylum claims and make it easier for minors to seek refuge, rights groups denounce the measures as overly repressive.

“We need to change the way we look at refugees,” Mandrila said, arguing for citizen action to help turn the tables. “To stop seeing them as a danger, but welcome them with dignity and kindness, because we could all become refugees at some point in our lives.”

A perilous journey

Attar’s wife and children flew out of Damascus in 2015, making their way to the central French city of Orleans.

He remained in Beirut, overseeing the handover of his banking job. By the time he was ready to follow them, his French visa had expired.

So, he joined the wave of migrants crossing the Mediterranean via Turkey. The first vessel he boarded was so full, he fell into the water, barely making it back to shore alive. A few days later, he tried again, this time successfully. From Greece, he slowly made his way across Europe, surprising his family at an Orleans supermarket.

“We began to learn French as soon as we arrived,” Attar recalled. “We knew that was the only way to succeed in France.”

After a year, Attar landed a job working for a car company. Today, the family has moved from a one-room studio to a small house with a garden. His wife is earning a master’s degree in business. His two children are in French schools.

Last year, he began working at the Refugee Food Festival. When La Residence restaurant opened, he became its first chef.

“I hope that all refugees will do like I did,” Attar said. “They will not sit down. Every day, they have to do their maximum to prove they can succeed again.”

Don’t blame Europe

A new report by the Carnegie Institute finds Europe woefully unprepared to manage a new migration surge, which it said will likely happen. Nationalist measures and identity politics are not only eroding the 26-nation, border-free Schengen zone, the report said, but are also posing roadblocks in establishing effective asylum and migration policies.

But Attar is more conciliatory.

“We cannot blame Europe for closing doors,” he said. “We have to blame those who created the problems.”

Later this month, a new chef will be taking over at La Residence. Middle East hummus will be traded for Georgian cuisine.

But Orleans will be getting its first, top-quality Syrian restaurant. Attar is putting the final touches on an old dream. He is already passing out business cards for Narenj, whose name evokes the bitter oranges of his former life.

“I’m going to propose new recipes with a French presentation,” he said, “but saving the old, authentic flavors of Damascus.”

“Food is a powerful medium to connect people — everyone is making it all over the world,” said Marine Mandrila, who founded the new restaurant and the festival with her partner, Martin. “It’s something that gathers people and also tells our intimate story, of where we come from.”
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Facebook Scandal May Impact China Overseas Surveillance Plans

By Uponsil | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Silicon Valley

China is turning artificial intelligence, face scanning, and other Big Data systems into new tools domestically to enhance the communist party’s command and control systems.

The party’s methods of surveillance and increasing use of technology present an interesting contrast with the ongoing scandal concerning the scraping and manipulation of Facebook data. In fact, analysts argue, the scandal and its after-effects will seriously impact China’s efforts to extend its surveillance systems to other countries.

In China, facial recognition and artificial intelligence are being used to stop jaywalkers and to control the number of sheets of toilet paper a person can obtain when using public toilets. Authorities in the southern city of Shenzhen recently began using the combined technology of facial recognition, mobile networks, and social media apps to send offenders fines in real time.

And that is just a portion of the state’s growing tech-infused control.

China’s capabilities also allow it to monitor business and political activities across numerous countries that are using Chinese technology platforms, including telecom equipment, payment systems, internet software and engineering standards.

Growing reach

The number of countries and markets using Chinese technology platforms is growing by the day, analysts said.

“Based on its (China’s) oversight of the platforms, it gives Chinese companies an advantage and that gives Chinese citizens an advantage and it means that China can more easily project power in the countries that are using platforms by Chinese companies,” James Grimmelmann, a professor at Cornell Law School told VOA. “If you then add China’s ability to compile data from them and use them for surveillance purposes, you can easily see how this turns into a technique for political influence, how this turns into a technique for espionage.”

The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal involves the use of personal data collected from 87 million people for the purpose of political manipulation in the United States and other countries.

Coming amid growing concerns about alleged Russian manipulation of U.S. elections and controversies surrounding the use of fake news, analysts say the scandal will result in massive regulatory changes in areas like privacy and monopoly of data by a few companies.

And the backlash could be seen across several countries where Chinese companies have gained a foothold by building elaborate telecom and internet infrastructure.

Alex Capri, a senior fellow at the department of analytics and operations of NUS Business School in Singapore, cited the case of Malaysia, where Chinese Internet giant Alibaba is closely integrated with a vast section of local business through its e-commerce platform.

“A lot of people look at Alibaba as almost an emissary of the communist state. So that makes a lot of people very nervous in terms of the amount of control and certainly the lack of privacy of data,” he said. “That is something that governments are going to be struggling with now and into the future in Asia when dealing with these big Chinese e-commerce platforms.”

There are signs that Malaysia and other countries may do to China what Beijing has long done to foreign businesses, namely demand that servers used by foreign companies are physically located in their jurisdiction. Once implemented, Chinese social media and e-commerce platforms could lose much of the business edge they enjoy at present.

European challenge

Chinese companies have been keen to extend their reach to Europe with not just physical infrastructure construction but also data and telecom networks. They will now have to follow the European Union’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which comes into effect May 25.

The GDPR would be a challenge to Chinese companies accustomed to standards in which ordinary people enjoy few access rights. The new European law makes it compulsory for foreign companies doing business in the European Union to keep the data of EU residents secure and make it available to any such resident who demands it.

“If an EU citizen, EU resident, asks Alibaba to provide this information with all the information that they have in their database, Alibaba has to abide. If they don’t, they will get into some discussion, or conversation or trouble with the EU authorities,” Kersi Porbunderwalla, secretary general of Copenhagen Compliance said.

China unaffected

China is likely to remain immune to the wave of regulatory changes that are expected to sweep through the developed world following the Facebook scandal, Capri pointed out.

“The Chinese model, which essentially says, ‘Look, the state has to have access to all of this data, the State has to mandate that you turn over this data that is requested, the State also needs to get the encryption keys to your programs,” he said.

He said the Communist Party is unlikely to bring in major regulatory changes to protect privacy because that would mean cutting off data access for itself.
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March Jobs Report: Another Big Month for Hiring?

By Uponbiz | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Business

Did March provide another month of blowout hiring? Was pay growth healthy?

When the government issues its monthly jobs report Friday, those two questions will be the most closely watched barometers.

Economists have forecast that employers added a solid 185,000 jobs in March and that the unemployment rate dipped from 4.1 percent to a fresh 17-year low of 4 percent, according to data provider FactSet.

The government will issue the jobs report at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time.

In February, employers added a blockbuster 313,000 jobs, the largest monthly gain in 18 months. Over the past six months, the average monthly gain has been 205,000, up from an average of 176,000 in the previous six months. Hiring at that pace could help nudge the unemployment rate below 4 percent in the coming months.

Hiring defies expectations

The surging pace of hiring has defied expectations that the low unemployment rate meant employers would struggle to fill positions, which, in turn, would restrain job growth. Job gains had slowed for most of 2017. But hiring accelerated starting in October, an unusual boost for an economy already in its ninth year of recovery.

In fact, the recovery from the 2008-2009 Great Recession has become the second-longest expansion since the 1850s, when economists began tracking recessions and recoveries. Still, the expansion has been puzzlingly slow, with economic growth averaging just 2.2 percent a year, about a percentage point below the historical average. But its durability has been broadly beneficial.

For example, a rising number of working-age Americans have begun looking for a job and finding one, reversing a trend from the first few years after the recession when many of the unemployed grew discouraged and stopped looking for work.

The proportion of adults in their prime working years, defined as ages 25 to 54, who are either working or looking for work jumped to 82.2 percent in February, up one-half of 1 percentage point from a year earlier. That’s still below the pre-recession level, which suggests that steady economic growth could continue to pull more job-seekers off the sidelines.

Will wages rise, too?

An increasing need to compete for workers may also finally be lifting wages in some sectors. Average hourly earnings rose 2.9 percent in January compared with 12 months earlier, the sharpest such increase in eight years. That unexpected surge triggered a plunge in financial markets, with investors fearing that accelerating wage growth might lead the Federal Reserve to step up its pace of interest rate hikes to control inflation.

But pay growth slipped in February to a year-over-year pace of 2.6 percent, suggesting that employers are still avoiding giving broad pay raises to their workers. The influx of new workers, which gives employers more hiring options than a 4.1 percent unemployment rate might otherwise suggest, may also be holding back wage growth.

Though the economy likely slowed in the first three months of this year, the healthy pace of hiring indicates that employers anticipate solid customer demand for the rest of the year. Macroeconomic Advisers, a consulting firm, forecasts that the economy grew at just a 1.4 percent annual rate in the January-March quarter — less than half the 2.9 percent annual pace of the October-December quarter.

But the firm expects growth to rebound to a decent 3.1 percent annual pace in the current April-June quarter.

Other reports indicate that growing optimism among businesses and consumers should help propel the economy in the months ahead.

Businesses have stepped up their spending on manufactured goods, helping lift factory output.

And last month, factories expanded at a healthy pace after having grown in February at the fastest rate since 2004, according to a private survey. Government data showed that orders for long-lasting factory goods, including industrial machinery, metals and autos, surged in February.

Americans have spent less at retail chains in the past two months, after shopping at a healthy pace during the winter holiday season. With consumer confidence near the highest point in two decades, however, consumer spending is likely to rebound in the coming months.

This story was written by the Associated Press.
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Smartphone Technology Helps Mental Health Patients

By Uponsil | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Silicon Valley

About 1 percent of the world’s population lives with the mental condition called bipolar disorder, characterized by swings between elevated and depressed moods. In most cases, timely interaction with psychotherapists, family and friends can alleviate the symptoms. Researchers in Denmark say modern technology can help by keeping track of a patient’s symptoms and summoning help quickly when needed. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Trump, White House Defend Action on China Trade

By Uponbiz | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Business

The Trump administration says China is responsible for a trade war with the United States because of its long-term unfair practices. A senior White House economic adviser said Thursday no measures have been enacted, but the situation cannot continue. U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States and China will have a “fantastic relationship” once they straighten out their trade issues. But analysts warn that raising tariffs is not good for the global economy. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Facebook: Public Data of Most Users Probably Has Been Scraped

By Uponsil | 04/06/2018 | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Facebook’s acknowledgement that the personal data of most of its 2.2 billion members has probably been scraped by “malicious actors” is the latest example of the social network’s failure to protect its users’ data.

Not to mention its seeming inability to even identify the problem until the company was embroiled in scandal.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg told reporters Wednesday that Facebook is shutting down a feature that let people search for Facebook users by phone number or email address. Although that was useful for people who wanted to find others on Facebook, it turns out that unscrupulous types also figured out years ago that they could use it identify individuals and collect data off their profiles.

The scrapers were at it long enough, Zuckerberg said, that “at some point during the last several years, someone has probably accessed your public information in this way.”

The only way to be safe would have been for users to deliberately turn off that search feature several years ago. Facebook had it turned on by default.

Several investigations

“I think Facebook has not been clear enough with how to use its privacy settings,” said Jamie Winterton, director of strategy for Arizona State University’s Global Security Initiative. “That, to me, was the failure.”

The breach was a stunning admission for a company already reeling from allegations that the political data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica inappropriately accessed data on as many as 87 million Facebook users to influence elections.

Over the past few weeks, the scandal has mushroomed into investigations across continents, including a probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Zuckerberg himself will be questioned by Congress for the first time Tuesday.

“The FTC looked the other way for years when consumer groups told them Facebook was violating its 2011 deal to better protect its users. But now the Cambridge Analytica scandal has awoken the FTC from its long digital privacy slumber,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director for the Washington-based privacy nonprofit Center for Digital Democracy.

Problem found after Cambridge Analytica

Neither Zuckerberg nor his company has identified those who carried out the data scraping. Outside experts believe they could have been identity thieves, scam artists or shady data brokers assembling marketing profiles.

Zuckerberg said the company detected the problem in a data-privacy audit started after the Cambridge Analytica disclosures, but didn’t say why the company hadn’t noticed it — or fixed it — earlier.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday on when it discovered the data scraping.

In his call with reporters Wednesday, Zuckerberg said the company had tried “rate limiting” the searches. This restricted how many searches someone can conduct at one time from a particular IP address, a numeric designation that identifies a device’s location on the internet. But Zuckerberg said the scrapers circumvented that defense by cycling through multiple IP addresses.

Public information useful

The scraped information was limited to what a user had chosen to make public — which, depending on a person’s privacy settings, could be a lot — as well as what Facebook requires people to share. That includes full name, profile picture and listings of school or workplace networks.

But hackers and scam artists could then use that information, and combine it with other data in circulation, to pull hoaxes on people, plant malware on their computers or commit other mischief.

Having access to such a massive amount of data could also pose national security risks, Winterton said.

A foreign entity could conceivably use such information to influence elections or stir up discord, exactly what Russia is alleged to have done, using Facebook and other social media, in the 2016 presidential elections.

Oversharing

Privacy advocates have long been critical of Facebook’s penchant for pushing people to share more and more information, often through pro-sharing default options.

While the company offers detailed privacy controls — users can turn off ad targeting, for example, or face recognition, and post updates that no one else sees — many people never change their settings, and often don’t even know how to.

The company has tried to simplify its settings multiple times over the years, most recently this week.

Winterton said that for individual Facebook users, worrying about this data scraping won’t do much good, after all, the data is already out there. But she said it might be a good time to “reflect on what we are sharing and how we are sharing it and whether we need to.”

“Just because someone asks us information, it doesn’t mean we have to give it to them if we are not comfortable,” she said.

She added that while she no longer has a Facebook account, when she did she put her birth year as 1912 and her hometown as Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Neither is true.

This story was written by the Associated Press
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Day: April 6, 2018