Washington is digesting China’s stated intention to purchase more American goods and reduce the trade imbalance between the two countries. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, last week’s talks between U.S. and Chinese negotiators did not yield specific commitments from Beijing in dollar figures, sparking criticism from some lawmakers in Washington.
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Month: May 2018
Facebook and European Union officials were locked in high-stakes negotiations Sunday over whether founder Mark Zuckerberg will appear Tuesday before EU lawmakers to discuss the site’s impact on the privacy rights of hundreds of millions of Europeans, as well as Facebook’s impact on elections on both sides of the Atlantic and the spreading of fake news.
Being debated is whether the meeting would be held after EU Parliament President Antonio Tajanibe agreed to have it live-streamed on the internet and not held behind closed-doors, as previously agreed.
The leaders of all eight political blocs in the parliament have insisted the format be changed.
Lawmakers say it would be deeply damaging for Zuckerberg, if he pulls out simply because they want him to hold what they say is the equivalent of a “Facebook Live.”
Claude Moraes, chairman of the EU parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs panel, warned Zuckerberg will have to go into greater detail than he did in his testimony before U.S. Senate and Congressional panels last month on the “issues of algorithmic targeting, and political manipulation” and on Facebook’s relationship with Cambridge Analytica.
Facebook shared with the British firm the data of millions of Americans and Europeans, which was subsequently used for election campaigning purposes. Facebook did not return calls from VOA asking about whether Zuckerberg’s meeting with EU lawmakers would still go ahead.
“EU governments are absolutely aware that every election now is tainted. We want to get to the heart of this,” said Moraes. EU lawmakers say Zuckerberg’s appearance is all the more important as he has declined to appear before national European parliaments, including Britain’s House of Commons.
Terrorist connections
Zuckerberg is likely also to be pressed on why Facebook is still being used by extremists to connect with each other and to recruit. Much of the focus in recent weeks on Facebook has been about general issues over its management of users’ data, but analysts are warning the social-media site is enabling a deadly form of social networking and isn’t doing enough to disrupt it.
“Facebook’s data management practices have potentially served the networking purposes of terrorists,” said the Counter Extremism Project, nonprofit research group, in a statement.
“CEP’s findings regularly debunk Facebook’s claims of content moderation. This week, a video made by the pro-ISIS al-Taqwa media group was found that includes news footage from attacks in the West and calls for further violence, encouraging the viewer to attack civilians and ‘kill them by any means or method,” according to CEP
CEP researchers say Facebook’s “suggested friends” feature helps extremists connect to each other and is “enabling a deadly form of social networking.” “Worldwide, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, there has been a spike of militant activity on social media channels … Encrypted messaging apps like Facebook-owned WhatsApp are well known mechanisms used by terrorists to communicate, plot and plan attacks, a practice that is tragically continuing,” CEP says.
New rules
Aside from the EU parliament, Zuckerberg has agreed to be interviewed onstage Thursday at a major tech conference in Paris, and is scheduled to have lunch with French president Emmanuel Macron during the week.
His visit comes as the British government is threatening social-media companies with a tax to pay for efforts to counter online crime. According to Britain’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper, British ministers have instructed officials to carry out research into a new “social media levy” on internet companies.
Culture Minister Matt Hancock indicated Sunday the British government is beginning to move away from allowing the internet companies to regulate themselves and is ready to impose requirements on them, which if approved by parliament will make Britain the “safest place in the world” to be online.
A new code of practice aimed at confronting social-media bullying and to clear the internet of intimidating or humiliating online content could be included in the legislation, say officials. Other measures being considered include rules that have to be followed by traditional broadcasters that prevent certain ads being targeted at children. Hancock said work with social-media companies to protect users had made progress, but the performance of the industry overall has been mixed, he added.
Hancock said, “Digital technology is overwhelmingly a force for good across the world and we must always champion innovation and change for the better.”
The U.S. and China said Sunday they have agreed to back away from imposing tough new tariffs on each other’s exports, a day after reaching an accord calling for Beijing to buy more American goods to “substantially reduce” the huge U.S. trade deficit with China.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Fox News the world’s two biggest economic powers “have made very meaningful progress and we agreed on a framework” to resolve trade issues. “So right now we have agreed to put the tariffs on hold while we try to execute the framework.”
Watch related video by VOA’s Michael Bowman:
China’s state-run news agency Xinhua quoted Vice-Premier Liu He, who led Chinese negotiators in trade talks in Washington this past week, as saying, “The two sides reached a consensus, will not fight a trade war, and will stop increasing tariffs on each other.”
Liu said the agreement was a “necessity.” But he added: “At the same time it must be realized that unfreezing the ice cannot be done in a day, solving the structural problems of the economic and trade relations between the two countries will take time.”
U.S. President Donald Trump had threatened to impose new tariffs on $150 billion worth of Chinese imports and Beijing had responded that it would do the same on American goods.
Mnuchin and White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross would soon go to Beijing to negotiate on how China might buy more American goods to reduce the huge U.S. trade deficit with Beijing, which last year totaled $375 billion.
Although the U.S. has said it wants to reduce the trade deficit by $200 billion annually, Saturday’s agreement mentioned no specific number.
Kudlow told ABC News, “You can’t predict these numbers. We’ve made a lot of progress. You can see where we’re going next. As tariffs come down, the barriers come down, there will be more American exports.”
Kudlow said Ross will be “looking into a number of areas where we’re going to have greatly significant increases” in U.S. exports, including energy, liquefied natural gas, agriculture and manufacturing.
He said any agreement reached will be “good for American exports and good for Chinese growth.”
Mnuchin predicted a 35 to 40 percent increase in U.S. agricultural exports to China and a doubling of energy purchases over the next three to five years.
“We have specific targets,” he said. “I am not going to publicly disclose what they are. They go industry by industry.”
One contentious point of conflict between the two trading points is the fate of ZTE, the giant technology Chinese company that has bought American-made components to build its consumer electronic devices.
The U.S. fined ZTE $1.2 billion last year for violating American bans on trade with Iran and North Korea. But ZTE said recently it was shutting down its manufacturing operations because it could no longer buy the American parts after the U.S. imposed a seven-year ban on the sale of the components.
However, Trump, at the behest of Chinese President Xi Jinping, a week ago “instructed” Ross to intervene to save the company and prevent the loss of Chinese jobs.
Even so, Kudlow said, “Do not expect ZTE to get off scot free. Ain’t going to happen.”
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Edison did it. Eastman did it. And so did Steve Jobs.
They invented products that changed our lives.
But for every well-known inventor there are many other, less recognizable individuals whose innovative products have greatly impacted our world.
Fifteen of those trailblazing men and women — both past and present — were recently honored for their unique contributions in a special ceremony at the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum, which is nestled in a corner of the vast atrium of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office building in Alexandria, Virginia.
Augmented reality
Stan Honey was honored for inventing a graphics systems that makes it easier for television viewers around the world to see key moments during live sporting events… such as sailing, car racing and American football.
“What we do is we superimpose graphic elements like yellow lines into the real world, correctly positioned so that they can reveal something that’s important to a game that is otherwise hard to see,” he said.
The graphics make those yellow lines look like they’re actually on the field, Honey explained, but “they’re keyed underneath the athletes… so it looks like it’s on the grass, but in fact if you were in the stadium of course, it’s not actually there!”
In sports like football, Honey pointed out, the graphics are used “for the ‘first down’ line.” In baseball, to show “where the balls go through the strike zone or miss the strike zone,” and in sailing they’re used “to show who’s ahead, who’s behind, where the laylines are, what the wind direction is.”
“Any sport that has something that’s really important and hard to see can benefit from graphics that are inserted into the real world,” he added.
WATCH: Julie Taboh’s video report
Lasting beauty
“Curiosity and exploration are the essential starting points of innovation,” says inductee Sumita Mitra. She credits her life-long love of learning to her parents and teachers; “They taught me how to learn… and if you know how to learn, you can learn anything.”
Mitra put her learning skills to full use when she discovered that using nanoparticles can strengthen dental composites while helping teeth maintain their natural look. She was looking for “beauty that lasts,” she said, and decided “nanoparticle technology would be the right ticket to create something to meet these objectives.”
Rini Paiva, who oversees the selection committee at the National Inventors Hall of Fame, noted that more than 600 million restorations take place every year using Mitra’s technology.
Gallery of icons
The annual selection process is very competitive, say Paiva, “because there are a lot of terrific inventors out there and our job is really to look for the ones who have had the most impact on our world.”
Each year, as a select group of inventors are inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, they’re presented with hexagonal-shaped plaques inscribed with their name, invention and patent number. Those simple but symbolic awards become part of a permanent collection that now stands at more than 560.
Five of the 2018 inductees were recognized for their contributions posthumously, their awards accepted by their respective representatives.
Temperature controls
Mary Engle Pennington, who died at the age of 80 in 1952, was a pioneer in the safe preservation, handling, storage and transportation of perishable foods, which impacted the health and well-being of generations of Americans. She was recognized for her numerous accomplishments, including her discovery of a way to refrigerate train cars, allowing perishable foods to be safely moved from one place to another.
In 1895, Warren Johnson introduced the first multi-zone automatic temperature control system commercially feasible for widespread application. The Johnson System of Temperature Regulation was used in commercial buildings, offices, and schools, and also installed in the U.S. Capitol Building, the Smithsonian, the New York Stock Exchange, West Point Military Academy, and the home of Andrew Carnegie. In 2008, it was designated an ASME Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark.
Johnson’s innovations and the company he co-founded, Johnson Controls, helped launch the multi-billion-dollar building controls industry.
The real deal
Established in 1973 in partnership with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum provides numerous displays and interactive exhibits on patents and the patent process, and the inductees and their patented inventions.
There’s a model of Thomas Edison’s light bulb, George Eastman’s hand-held cameras, and replicas of Ford Mustangs from 1965 and 2015 — split down the middle to show how the iconic car has changed over 50 years.
Visitors can also learn about trademarks, (think NIKE’s Swoosh logo), how to detect the real from the fake, (counterfeit designer handbags and accessories were hard to tell apart from the genuine article), and match characters, colors, and even sounds, to their respective brands.
Future inventors
Rini Paiva notes that while the museum is dedicated to honoring the greatest innovative minds from the past and present, it is also committed to its educational intiatives through its partnership with 1,300 schools and districts nationwide.
“Our museum does share the stories of the inductees in the National Inventors Hall of Fame, but beyond that it really shows people what we can do through our education programs, really in encouraging young people to pursue STEM fields, and also in the power of intellectual property.”
Education merges with the symbolic presence of some of the world’s most innovative minds whose examples of American ingenuity serve to inform and inspire others who may follow in their paths.
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Congo’s health ministry announced one new death from Ebola Sunday, bringing to 26 the number of deaths from the deadly outbreak in Equateur province in the country’s northwest.
Four new cases of the Ebola virus have been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to country’s health ministry most recent statement.
A total of 46 cases of the hemorrhagic fever have been reported in the current outbreak: 21 confirmed cases of Ebola, 21 probable and four suspected.
President Joseph Kabila and his Cabinet decided Saturday to increase funds for Ebola emergency response which amounts to more than $4 million.
Health Minister Oly Ilunga said late Friday the new cases of the often lethal virus were confirmed in Mbandaka city, a city of 1.2 million people where another case was confirmed days earlier.
The United Nations World Health Organization declined to declare the outbreak an international health emergency but said the risk of the virus spreading within the country was “very high.” The WHO said there was also a high risk of it spreading to nine neighboring countries but maintained there should be no travel or trade restrictions in the region.
A new, experimental vaccine is expected to be administered beginning early next week. The vaccine was effective in a West African outbreak a few years ago. Four-thousand doses are already in Congo and more shipments are enroute. Congolese health officials are challenged with keeping the vaccine cold in a large country where the infrastructure is in poor condition.
This is the ninth Ebola outbreak in Congo in more than 40 years, but the earlier ones were limited to rural areas. There were two outbreaks in the capital of Kinshasa, which has a population of 10 million people, but they were quickly stopped.
There is no specific treatment for the virus, which is lethal and highly contagious. The latest virus is of the same strain that spread in three West African countries for two years beginning in 2013, creating global panic. By the time its spread was halted, the virus had killed more than 11,300 people, making it the most deadly Ebola outbreak ever.
The day after the mass shooting at a Texas high school in the small town of Santa Fe, the students who survived are living through the painful aftermath. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee spoke to a couple of them who decided that working is the best way to cope.
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Wild animal sounds were heard recently in the halls of the U.S. Capitol. But these were not the calls of escaped animals. They were the sounds of endangered animals serving as the animal world’s ambassadors to commemorate “Endangered Species Day.” Their presence in the Capitol was intended to encourage legislators to support efforts to protect endangered and rare animals. But as Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports, conservation and animal welfare appears to be a touchy subject on Capitol Hill.
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As part of a wave of women’s empowerment programs, the government of Pakistan’s Punjab province is running a campaign called “Women on Wheels”, a 2-year-old program that trains women to ride motorcycles as a way to raise awareness of gender-based violence and street harassment. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports on the excitement and independence the campaign has brought to participants.
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A sick toddler is thriving thanks to his father’s kidney and a practice surgery using 3-D printed organs. VOA’s Steve Baragona explains.
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South Korea’s fourth-largest conglomerate, LG Group, said its Chairman Koo Bon-moo did Sunday.
Koo, 73, had been struggling with an illness for a year, LG Group said in a statement.
“Becoming the third chairman of LG at the age of 50 in 1995, Koo established key three businesses — electronics, chemicals and telecommunications — led a global company LG, and contributed to driving (South Korea’s) industrial competitiveness and national economic development,” LG said.
A group official said Koo had been unwell for a year and had undergone surgery. The official declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Before its chairman’s death, LG Group had established a holding company in order to streamline ownership structure and begin the process of succession.
Heir apparent Koo Kwang-mo is from the fourth generation of LG Group’s controlling family. He owns 6 percent of LG Corp and works as a senior official at LG Electronics Inc.
The senior Koo’s funeral will be private at the request of the family, the company said.
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Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda won the Palme d’Or at Cannes on Saturday for Shoplifters, a critically acclaimed family drama with
unguessable plot twists.
The award, to a director who has won prizes at the festival before, defied speculation that the Palme might go to a female director, with three strong contenders in a year when the Hollywood sex scandal was the talk of the town.
Italian actress Asia Argento, who has accused movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault, said there were abusers in the audience who had yet to be outed.
Argento said Weinstein raped her during the Cannes festival in 1997 when she was 21. “This festival was his hunting ground,” Argento said in a speech ahead of the prize announcements.
Weinstein has denied allegations of non-consensual sex. A spokesman for Weinstein had no immediate comment. Argento’s London-based agent, Steve Kenis, was not immediately available to provide further details.
“Even tonight, sitting among you, there are those who still have to be held accountable for their conduct against women,” Argento told the black-tie ceremony. “You know who you are, but, most importantly, we know who
you are, and we are not going to allow you to get away with it any longer.”
After the ceremony, Cate Blanchett, who headed the jury of five women and four men, said: “Women and men alike on the jury would love to see more female directorial voices represented,” adding that it had been “bloody hard” to select a winner.
‘Bowled over’
“But in the end I think we were completely bowled over by how intermeshed the performances were with the directorial vision,” she said of Shoplifters.
The runner-up prize, the Grand Prix, went to Spike Lee’s satire BlacKkKlansman, based on the true story of a black police officer who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s.
Blanchett said the film’s ending, with footage of the far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last August and President Donald Trump blaming “both sides” for the deadly violence, “blew us out of the cinema.”
A female director, Nadine Labaki from Lebanon, won the Jury Prize — effectively, the bronze medal — for Capharnaum, a realist drama about childhood neglect in the slums of Beirut.
Fifty years after he helped get the Cannes festival canceled in 1968 in solidarity with worker-student protests, 87-year-old Jean-Luc Godard received a Special Palme d’Or for his collage of sounds and images, The Image Book.
Poland’s Pawel Pawlikowski won Best Director for Cold War, a romance that moves from the peasant farms of Poland to Paris jazz clubs and back from the 1940s to the 1960s.
Girl, a Belgian drama about a transgender teenage girl’s quest to become a ballerina, won the Camera d’Or for the best directorial debut for director Lukas Dhont.
Jafar Panahi, the Iranian director who is prevented from leaving Iran and is in theory banned from making films, won Best Screenplay for 3 Faces along with co-writer Nader Saeivar.
The award was given jointly to another film, Happy as Lazzaro, written and directed by Italian Alice Rohrwacher.
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Justify emerged from the fog and sloshed his way to another victory Saturday, holding off several hard-charging challengers to win the Preakness Stakes and keep alive the chance for trainer Bob Baffert’s second Triple Crown champion in four years.
On a sloppy track similar to the conditions in the Kentucky Derby, Justify improved to 5-0 and will go to the Belmont Stakes in New York on June 9 looking to do the same thing American Pharoah did for Baffert in 2015.
Justify showed no ill effects from a bruised heel on his left hind foot that was discovered in the aftermath of the Derby, an injury Baffert insisted would not be a problem.
Justify and Good Magic went to the lead early and traded first back and forth throughout the 1-3/16-mile race. Bravazo edged longshot Tenfold for second, and Good Magic was fourth.
“They had their own private match race,” Baffert said. “He’s just a great horse to handle all that pressure and keep on running.”
Baffert tied veteran D. Wayne Lukas’ record with his 14th victory in a Triple Crown race and matched 19th-century trainer R.W. Walden with his seventh Preakness title. Baffert also remained undefeated with Derby winners in the Preakness following Silver Charm, Real Quiet, War Emblem and American Pharoah.
Justify showed more evidence of being the same kind of super horse as American Pharoah, and Baffert has repeatedly drawn comparisons between them. Three years after American Pharoah won at Pimlico in a driving rainstorm, Mike Smith rode Justify through thick fog that engulfed the racetrack.
Smith won the Preakness for just the second time in 17 tries, 25 years after his first aboard Prairie Bayou.
Justify is the 36th horse to win both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.
“I’m so happy that we got it done,” Baffert said.
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China and the United States said Saturday that they had reached consensus on steps to substantially reduce the U.S. trade deficit with Beijing.
The announcement followed high-level talks in Washington and U.S. allegations that unfair Chinese trade practices meant the United States was buying far more from China than it sold there.
China pledged to make “meaningful” increases in purchases of services and goods, particularly agricultural and energy items.
A statement from the White House said Washington would send a team of officials to China to work out details. It mentioned the importance of intellectual property protection and said the two sides would work to achieve a “level playing field in trade.”
New York Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, said the statement offered too few details.
He said China often denies access to its huge market unless U.S. companies give Chinese firms access to American technical and business secrets. Schumer said short-term purchases of U.S. goods would not make up for that.
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From the windswept Falkland Islands, battered by the South Atlantic and home to colonies of penguins, to the heat of Kenya, India and Australia, people around the world celebrated Britain’s glittering royal wedding Saturday.
The scenes of pageantry and romance in Windsor, where Prince Harry married his American bride Meghan Markle, were beamed to locations across continents where people dressed up, raised their glasses and enjoyed the fun of a uniquely British event.
“We are very fond of our royal family and it’s lovely to celebrate an event like this,” said Falkland Islander Leona Roberts, a member of the local assembly and one of the organizers of a wedding party in the tiny capital, Port Stanley.
Children dressed up as princes and princesses for the party, where they received special gifts.
Argentina disputes Britain’s sovereignty over the Falklands, which lie 300 miles (500 km) from the Argentine coast, and the two countries fought a war in 1982 over the islands. Many islanders are fiercely patriotic about Britain.
“As a Falkland Islander, I definitely feel a bond with the royal family as a symbol of Britishness. I am a staunch royalist,” said Arlette Betts, at her home on the waterfront in Port Stanley, home to most of the archipelago’s 4,000 inhabitants.
On the other side of the world, in India, a group of Mumbai’s famed dabbawalas, or lunch delivery men, chose a traditional sari dress and kurta jacket as wedding gifts for Harry and his bride, while at the Gurukul School of Art children painted posters of the royal couple and Queen Elizabeth.
In Australia, where the British monarch remains the head of state, some pubs held wedding parties, while a cinema chain screened the wedding live across its network. Viewers dressed in finery, with prizes for the most creative outfits.
At the Royal Hotel in Sydney, guests celebrated with a fancy banquet and burst into a spontaneous chorus of “Stand by Me” when a gospel choir sang the Ben E. King hit during the ceremony in Windsor.
“I just think the monarchy as such brings everyone together,” said retiree Bernie Dennis, one of those attending the banquet. “It’s like a family wedding.”
In Melbourne, fashion designer Nadia Foti attended an “English high tea” where guests wore plastic crowns and enjoyed traditional British treats such as scones and the popular summer drink Pimm’s.
“It’s exciting for the fashion and the spectacular,” said Foti. “It’s a joyous occasion and I’ve made a plum cake to celebrate in classic English style.”
There were lavish celebrations at the Windsor Golf and Country Club on the outskirts of Nairobi, where guests had shelled out 1 million shillings ($10,000) to view the wedding on a giant screen, enjoy a seven-course banquet and fly to Mount Kenya by helicopter for breakfast the following morning.
Trainee lawyer Odette Ndaruzi, who is preparing for her own wedding later in the year, said she wanted to pick up some tips.
“I’m excited to see how the maidens in England are dressed, the jewelry and colors they are wearing,” she said.
The event drew criticism from some Kenyan media, however, due to the hefty price tag in a country where millions live in slums.
But perhaps the greatest interest in the royal wedding, outside of Britain, was in the bride’s home country, the United States.
In New York, revelers headed to Harry’s Bar to watch the ceremony on TV, surrounded by U.S. and British flags. Many posed for photos alongside cardboard cutouts of the bride and groom.
In Los Angeles, a lively crowd at the English-style Cat and Fiddle pub in Hollywood enjoyed pints of beer, royal-themed cocktails and British staples like sausage rolls and scones.
Popular tipples included the “Bloody Harry,” billed as a modern take on the Bloody Mary, but with added ginger as a cheeky nod to the prince’s red hair.
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The big day finally arrived for Britain’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, as the couple married Saturday in the town of Windsor, outside London.
Prince Charles, Prince Harry’s father, walked the bride down the aisle.
The American former actress confirmed earlier that her father would not attend the ceremony, owing to ill health, after days of speculation over whether he would make the journey across the Atlantic.
Throngs of people descended on the historic town as well-wishers tried to catch a glimpse of the royal couple. Thousands of police officers mounted one of the biggest security operations in recent years, paid for by the public — a bill resented by some opposed to the monarchy.
Supporters argued the wedding was likely to attract big spending by visitors and those watching in bars and big screens across the country.
The ceremony began at midday in the stunning 14th century Saint George’s Chapel on the grounds of Windsor Castle, where Prince Harry was baptized in 1984.
In Photos: The Royal Wedding
Some 600 guests were invited, mainly those who have a direct relationship with the couple.
In addition, more than 2,500 members of the public were invited onto the castle grounds — the prime spot to watch the guests come and go.
“To me, that was surprising, and it was very touching. Because for as much as they don’t like the media intrusion, the royals, they’ve invited media in, they’ve invited the public in, and they’re wanting to share their special day,” said Thomas Mace-Archer-Mills of the British Monarchist Society and Foundation.
Four members of the Mumbai city-based charity the Myna Mahila Foundation were invited. The non-governmental organization provides sanitary products in the slums of the Indian capital and was visited by Meghan Markle last year. It’s one of seven charities that the couple have asked guests to make donations to instead of providing wedding gifts. The charity’s founder, Myne Mahila, says the invitation came as a huge shock.
“We are representing not just ‘Myna,’ but also the women across the urban slums in the city and India as well. I think there is a lot on the plate and a lot of pressure,” she said.
More than 100,000 people were expected to line the streets of Windsor. Many arrived early to bag the best spots for a look. Donna Werner is a self-confessed royal “superfan” who flew over from her home in the U.S. state of Connecticut and camped out for four nights on a Windsor sidewalk.
In Photos: Crowds, Stars Gather for Royal Wedding
“Every little girl has read fairy tales from her childhood on by her mother and she always dreams of becoming a princess and living in a castle. And I mean, this is it. This is a real-life fairy tale,” she said.
In a break with U.S. tradition, Meghan Markle did not have a maid of honor. All of the six bridesmaids and four page boys were children of friends of the couple. Harry’s nephew, Prince George, was a pageboy, and niece, Princess Charlotte, a bridesmaid.
In the kitchens of Windsor Castle, 30 chefs prepared a banquet for the reception guests.
“The couple … tasted everything, they’ve been involved in every detail,” says royal head chef Mark Flanagan.
That could mean some stateside surprises among the British fare.
“Are we going to see hot dogs and these sorts of American things? I’m sure there will be a nod to the American culture where food is concerned,” said Mace-Archer-Mills.
As well as the home crowds, millions were expected to watch on television around the globe, with the promise of British pomp mixed with plenty of Hollywood glamour.
Fern Robinson contributed to this report.
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Millions around the world watch the union of British royalty and Hollywood glamour at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle in Windsor, near London, England.
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Three new cases of the often lethal Ebola virus have been confirmed in a city of more than 1 million people, Congo’s health minister announced, as the spread of the hemorrhagic fever in an urban area raised alarm.
The statement late Friday said the confirmed cases are in Mbandaka city, where a single case was confirmed earlier in the week.
There are now 17 confirmed Ebola cases in this outbreak, including one death, plus 21 probable cases and five suspected ones.
The World Health Organization on Friday decided not to declare the outbreak a global health emergency, but it called the risk of spread within Congo “very high” and warned nine neighboring countries that the risk to them was high. WHO said there should be no international travel or trade restrictions.
The outbreak is a test of a new experimental Ebola vaccine that proved effective in the West Africa outbreak a few years ago. Vaccinations are expected to start early in the week, with more than 4,000 doses already in Congo and more on the way.
A major challenge will be keeping the vaccines cold in the vast, impoverished country where infrastructure is poor.
While Congo has contained several Ebola outbreaks in the past, all of them were based in remote rural areas. The virus has twice made it to Congo’s capital of 10 million people, Kinshasa, in the past but was rapidly stopped.
Health officials are trying to track down more than 500 people who have been in contact with those feared infected, a task that became more urgent with the spread to Mbandaka, which lies on the Congo River, a busy traffic corridor, and is an hour’s flight from the capital.
The outbreak was declared more than a week ago in Congo’s remote northwest. Its spread has some Congolese worried.
“Even if it’s not happening here yet I have to reduce contact with people. May God protect us in any case,” Grace Ekofo, a 23-year-old student in Kinshasa, told The Associated Press.
A teacher in Mbandaka, 53-year-old Jean Mopono, said they were trying to implement preventative measures by teaching students not to greet each other by shaking hands or kissing.
“We pray that this epidemic does not take place here,” Mopono said.
The WHO, which was accused of bungling its response to the West Africa outbreak, the biggest Ebola outbreak in history with more than 11,000 deaths, appears to be moving swiftly to contain this latest epidemic, experts said.
There is “strong reason to believe this situation can be brought under control,” said Dr. Robert Steffen, who chaired the WHO expert meeting on Friday. But without a vigorous response, “the situation is likely to deteriorate significantly.”
This is the ninth Ebola outbreak in Congo since 1976, when the disease was first identified. The virus is initially transmitted to people from wild animals, including bats and monkeys. It is spread via contact with bodily fluids of those infected.
There is no specific treatment for Ebola. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain and at times internal and external bleeding. The virus can be fatal in up to 90 percent of cases, depending on the strain.
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Conservationists around the world are making great strides in rescuing animal species from the brink of extinction. Despite the recent death of the last male white rhinoceros, there is hope that science can bring the species back. In Europe, scientists are raising bison almost a century after they vanished from the wild, and California’s population of sea otters has rebounded from only 50 specimens in the 1930s. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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