A report published Friday by Europe’s top human rights body finds xenophobia and hate speech are on the rise across the region. Despite progress in some areas, the Council of Europe finds minorities, including Muslims, Jews, homosexuals and Roma, face stigma, intolerance and sometimes exclusion across its 48 member states. A citizens’ initiative aims to bridge these divisions through dialogue. From the northern French city of Caen, Lisa Bryant reports for VOA on so-called “Living Libraries.”
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Month: June 2018
One more U.S. Embassy employee in Havana, Cuba, has been affected by mysterious health incidents, the State Department said.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said one of two Americans recently evacuated from Cuba was “medically confirmed” to have been affected, while the other was “still being evaluated” by doctors.
25 Americans affected
In all, 25 Americans have been affected by the mystery ailment in Cuba.
“We still don’t know, to this day, what is causing it and who is responsible,” Nauert said, noting that investigations were underway in Havana as well as Guangzhou, China, where one employee experienced similar symptoms recently.
The United States has said that the Cuba incidents started in late 2016. The State Department calls them “specific attacks” but has not said what caused them or who was behind them. Cuba has adamantly denied involvement or knowledge.
Initial speculation centered on some type of sonic attack owing to strange sounds heard by those affected, but an interim FBI report in January found no evidence that sound waves could have caused the damage, The Associated Press has reported.
Warning issued in China
The State Department issued a health warning after the employee in China reported experiencing “subtle and vague, but abnormal, sensations of sound and pressure” and was diagnosed with a mild traumatic brain injury.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described it as a “serious medical incident.”
The new confirmation came less than a week after the U.S. renewed demands on Cuba to determine the source of the “attacks” on U.S. diplomats. Cuba responded by again denying any involvement in or knowledge of any such attacks.
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Microbes may be helping stir up anxiety and depression in obese people, if results from a new mouse study hold true in humans.
The authors link the effects to how the brain responds to insulin, the hormone that regulates sugar levels in the blood.
The research raises questions about whether changing gut microbes, or changing diet, could help treat these conditions.
Mood, microbes and metabolism
Obesity triggers changes in metabolism — for example, making liver, muscle, fat and other tissues less responsive to insulin. Left untreated, these changes can lead to diabetes.
Obese people also have higher rates of anxiety and depression.
“One could say, ‘Maybe that’s just because they’re obese,’ ” said Harvard Medical School diabetes researcher Ronald Kahn, “but others could say, ‘Maybe there’s a metabolic link.’ ”
“And we asked the question, ‘Maybe the metabolic link is at least partly fueled by the microbiome,’ ” the community of microbes living in a person’s gut, he added.
Those microbes change with diet, and Kahn said different microbes might respond differently to the foods we eat.
To test the theory, Kahn and colleagues fed mice a high-fat diet and studied their behavior as the animals became obese.
They used common tests to gauge anxious and depressed behavior in rodents — for example, how much time the animals spent hiding in a dark box versus exploring a brightly lit area. The more anxious the mouse, the less time it will spend in the light.
Obese mice spent about 25 percent less time in the light than animals on a normal diet, and they scored higher on the other anxiety and depression tests, too.
Return to normal
But those differences disappeared when obese mice were given antibiotics, even though their weight didn’t change much.
“That really says there’s probably something about the microbiome,” Kahn said.
The researchers then tested how the animals’ microbiomes affected mice raised in a sterile environment with no microbes of their own.
Bacteria from obese rodents made these germ-free mice more anxious than microbes from normal mice.
But when germ-free mice got microbes from obese animals that had been given antibiotics, they behaved like normal mice.
To see what parts of the brain might be responsible for the effects, the researchers focused on two regions involved in metabolism and responses to rewards. They found these regions were less responsive to insulin in the obese mice compared with normal-weight animals.
Again, antibiotics returned those responses to normal.
The research appears in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
“It was actually quite a surprise,” Kahn said. “Even though we had seen some effects on metabolism in the rest of the body, I was very surprised how dramatic and how clear the effects were also on the brain and on behavior.”
Into the unknown
That doesn’t mean antibiotics are the cure for obesity, Kahn warned. The drugs kill good and bad microbes indiscriminately, and taking the medication unnecessarily can contribute to the rising threat of antibiotic resistance.
Also, what happens in mice does not necessarily happen in humans, he added, or it may happen for only some people. So far, there is not much evidence that probiotics help anxious people.
“The difficulty is, both of these things — depression and obesity — are complicated things that have multiple, multiple factors influencing them,” said mental health researcher Gregory Simon at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute, who was not part of the study.
Microbes are likely just one factor, along with environment, genetics, social influences and more, Simon added.
But Kahn said his group’s research raised interesting questions about how food affects our behavior.
“I think now we can get some idea that there are a lot of things that are being metabolized by gut bacteria that could affect brain function,” he said.
And he said there might be ways to change brain function by changing those bacteria, by eating helpful microbes or by eating foods that sustain them.
He and his colleagues are working to figure out exactly which of the hundreds of species of gut bacteria are responsible. At the moment, it’s a mystery.
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Turkey announced Thursday that it would impose tariffs on $1.8 billion worth of U.S. goods in retaliation for U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
The World Trade Organization said the new Turkish tariffs would amount to $266.5 million on products including cars, coal, paper, rice and tobacco.
Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci said in a statement that Turkey would not allow itself “to be wrongly blamed for America’s economic challenges.”
He continued, “We are part of the solution, not the problem.”
On Wednesday, the EU announced that it had compiled a list of U.S. products on which it would begin charging import duties of 25 percent, a move that could escalate into a full-blown trade war, especially if U.S. President Donald Trump follows through with his threat to impose tariffs on European cars.
“We did not want to be in this position. However, the unilateral and unjustified decision of the U.S. to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on the EU means that we are left with no other choice,” EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said in a statement.
The commission, which manages the daily business of the EU, adopted a law that places duties on $3.2 billion worth of U.S. goods, including aluminum and steel products, agricultural products, bourbon and motorcycles.
Malmstrom said that the EU response was consistent with World Trade Organization rules and that the tariffs would be lifted if the U.S. rescinded its metal tariffs, which amount to $7.41 billion.
Trump slapped tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum on the EU, Canada and Mexico, which went into effect at the beginning of June.
Canada said it would impose retaliatory tariffs on $12.5 billion worth of U.S. products on July 1.
Mexico imposed tariffs two weeks ago on a range of U.S. products, including steel, pork and bourbon.
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Fever, chills, and muscle pain aren’t the symptoms just of malaria. They could be signs of leptospirosis, which infects millions of people each year — primarily in tropical regions.
The under-reported disease is usually spread though contact with rodents, but a new study finds this trend may not hold in northern Tanzania or beyond.
Research in Asia has tied living in close quarters with rats to outbreaks of leptospirosis. The bacterial infection causes symptoms that are often mistaken for malaria. Severe cases can be life-threatening, says Professor Albert Ko at the Yale School of Public Health.
“Our group has done global burden of disease studies on this and there are over a million a cases a year and roughly 60 thousand deaths,” said Ko.
Common source of fevers
Leptospirosis is becoming recognized as a common source of fevers in Africa. But the source of the disease was unclear. It could be rats, or it could be something else, said Michael Maze, of the University of Otago.
“Well, we know that leptospirosis has many possible animal hosts,” said Maze. “I guess the story starts when we identified how common leptospirosis was the cause of severe fever in people coming to the hospital in northern Tanzania.”
Maze and an international team of researchers asked those patients about their lifestyles: how many rats they saw around their home… whether they owned livestock and if so, what kind?
They also tested blood samples for leptospirosis infections. Of the nearly 900 people tested, almost a third were infected, or had been.
The researchers also trapped almost 400 rats in nearby villages. They tested the rodents to see if they carried the leptospira bacterium like their Asian cousins. They did not.
But cattle did — they found over seven percent of them carried up to four types of leptospira that could potentially infect humans. Goats and sheep did, too, though less often.
Blood samples match
This result matched the findings from the patients’ blood samples. People who owned livestock were most likely to have leptospirosis infections, especially cattle owners.
“Leptospirosis is carried in the renal tract — so the kidney and the bladder — and comes out in the urine of infected animals,” said Maze. “So even simple things like avoiding urine while doing activities such as, for example, milking cattle would be a good first step.”
Maze recommends abattoir workers and dairy farmers wear gloves and other protective clothing.
“A cow is much bigger and it produces a much larger volume of urine and so that creates a greater opportunity for exposure,” said Maze.
But Maze and colleagues found doctors did not diagnose a single one of the patients in the study with leptospirosis. In fact, one in four active cases was misdiagnosed as malaria — even though the patients’ blood tested negative for parasites.
Symptoms similar
Maze says one reason is because symptoms of the two diseases are similar and there is not an accurate, simple test for leptospirosis that can be run in regional hospitals.
“The second reason is that clinician awareness of these diseases is low,” said Maze. “If you don’t recognize them it becomes a cycle where they’re never diagnosed so you never recognize them.”
Yale’s Albert Ko says the work Maze and his colleagues have done provides a better understanding of how leptospirosis spreads.
“This is an important study specifically because it provides key information on risk factors in a high burden setting, said Ko. “In specifically among this at-risk population of vulnerable pastoralist society.”
A report by the U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights finds 40 million people in the United States live in poverty, 18.5 million live in extreme poverty and more than 5 million live in conditions of absolute poverty.
Special Rapporteur Philip Alston called the United States the most unequal society in the developed world. He said U.S. policies benefit the rich and exacerbate the plight of the poor.
He said the policies of President Donald Trump’s administration stigmatize the poor by insisting those receiving government benefits are capable of working and that benefits, such as food stamps, should be cut back significantly. He said the government’s suggestions that people on welfare are lazy and do not want to work misrepresent the facts.
“The statistics that are available show that the great majority of people who, for example, are on Medicaid are either working in full-time work — around half of them — or they are in school or they are giving full-time care to others,” Alston said.
He said 7 percent of people were not working.
Worst of the West
In his report, which will be delivered Friday to the U.N. Human Rights Council, Alston noted the United States had the highest rate of income inequality among Western countries, with the top 1 percent of the population owning more than 38 percent of total wealth. He said the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion in tax cuts would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy and would worsen the situation of the poor.
The U.N. investigator told VOA that at the completion of each of his country fact-finding missions, he issues what he calls an end-of mission statement. That, he said, gives some governments the opportunity to immediately respond.
“The U.S. chose not to do that, and since then there has not been any official response to either that end-of-mission statement or to the final report, which has now been out for a couple of weeks,” he said.
As is common practice, after Alston formally presents his report to the Human Rights Council, the concerned country has a right of reply. Though the United States has withdrawn as a member of the council, it still has the right to respond to the report as an observer country.
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One Iceland fan went to primary school with a player’s father. Another supporter’s son used to regularly wait on the team at a bar. And yet another fan is related by marriage to the squad’s chef.
With a population of around 350,000, Iceland is the smallest nation to ever qualify for a World Cup. So, for fans descending on Russia for the Nordic island’s first ever appearance at the tournament, the national team is often a deeply personal affair, with many supporters boasting blood ties or personal links with the players.
Bjarni Arnason, a 31-year-old Icelandic architect who travelled to Volgograd to watch his team play Nigeria in Group D on Friday, fondly recalled playing handball at high school with Iceland defender Ragnar Sigurdsson.
“He was really good!” laughed Arnason, decked out in the Iceland jersey on Thursday. “He was so good that the football team wanted him to just play football.”
The connections go on: A pal of Arnason is best friends with the wife of Iceland’s goalkeeper while a cousin played football with another player.
And Arnason’s father, in Volgograd for the game too, is old friends with the father of Alfred Finnbogason, who scored against twice world champions Argentina in their opening game on Saturday which ended 1-1.
“I added an 11 on my Iceland team shirt in honor of my friend’s son,” said Arni Sigurdsson.
But, true to Iceland’s no-frills reputation, that’s as far as the preferential treatment goes.
“I cheer for the team. I don’t cheer extra hard for anyone. We are probably all related somewhat anyway!” added engineer Sigurdsson, 61, with a chuckle.
That attitude is reflected on the pitch too. Coach — and part-time dentist — Heimir Hallgrimsson insists that all players are treated equally.
‘Cinderella story’
The team had a thrilling run at 2016 European championship, eliminating big-name England and advancing to the quarter-finals, propelled by their “thunder-clapping” fans and Viking imagery.
Iceland’s “Cinderella story” has smitten many football aficionados, especially those disgusted by corruption scandals engulfing FIFA and put off by the diva-like attitude of some leading players.
But one downside to hailing from such a small place is that privacy is not always an option.
Iceland fan Svavar Asmundsson said his son used to regularly pour drinks for members of Iceland’s team while working at a bar in capital Reykjavik.
“It was all good … But some of them are a little crazier than the others!” said Asmundsson, a 59-year-old who works in the fishing industry.
Still, the close-knit community never feels suffocating, said the father of midfielder Birkir Bjarnason, who was also in Volgograd to see his son play Nigeria.”
Africa’s most populous country with close to 200 million people, some 571 times Iceland’s population.
“I know who the fathers and mothers of all the players are. Many parents I knew before, but most of them I met after they started to play together,” said the midfielder’s father Bjarni Sveinbjornsson, a 55-year-old electrician. “It’s kind of a family.”
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Hymns sung to the Greek gods thousands of years ago resonated from ancient musical instruments in Athens on Thursday, transporting a transfixed audience to antiquity.
The phorminx, the kitharis, the krotala and the aulos — string and wind instruments reconstructed by musical group Lyravlos — echoed among marble statues in Athens’s National Archaeological Museum as part of World Music Day celebrations.
A family of musicians, Lyravlos have recreated exact replicas of the ancient instruments from natural materials including animal shells, bones, hides and horns.
Music was an integral part of almost every aspect of ancient Greek society, from religious, to social to athletic events.
Today only some 60 written scores of ancient Greek music have survived, said Lyravlos member Michael Stefos.
Stefos said they interpret them as best they can, relying on the accuracy of their recreated instruments.
“Joking aside, ancient CDs have never been found,” he said. Their performance included a hymn to the god Apollo, pieces played at the musical festival of the ancient Pythian Games in Delphi and during wine-laden rituals to the god Dionysus.
Michael’s father Panayiotis Stefos, who heads the group, travels to museums at home and abroad studying ancient Greek antiquities and texts in order to recreate the instruments.
“Usually each instrument has a different sound. It is not something you can make on a computer, it will not be a carbon copy,” said Stefos.
The difference with modern day instruments? “If someone holds it in their arms and starts playing, after a few minutes they don’t want to let it go, because it vibrates and pulsates with your body,” he said.
French tourist Helene Piaget, who watched the performance, said it was “inspiring.”
“One sees them on statues, on reliefs, and you can’t imagine what they might sound like,” she said.
World Music Day is an annual celebration that takes place on the summer solstice.
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India, the world’s biggest buyer of U.S. almonds, raised import duties on the commodity by 20 percent, a government order said, joining the European Union and China in retaliating against President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes on steel and aluminum.
New Delhi, incensed by Washington’s refusal to exempt it from the new tariffs, also imposed a 120 percent duty on the import of walnuts in the strongest action yet against the United States.
The move to increase tariffs from Aug. 4 will also cover a slew of other farm, steel and iron products.
It came a day after the European Union said it would begin charging 25 percent import duties on a range of U.S. products on Friday, in response to the new U.S. tariffs.
India is by far the largest buyer of U.S. almonds, purchasing over half of all U.S. almond shipments in 2017. A kilogram of shelled almonds will attract duty of as much as 120 rupees ($1.76) instead of the current 100 rupees, the Commerce Ministry said.
Last month, New Delhi sought an exemption from the new U.S. tariffs, saying its steel and aluminum exports were small in relation to other suppliers. But its request was ignored, prompting India to launch a complaint against the United States at the World Trade Organization.
“India’s tariff retaliation is within the discipline of trade tariffs of the World Trade Organization,” said steel secretary Aruna Sharma.
Trade differences between India and the United States have been rising since U.S. President Donald Trump took office. Bilateral trade rose to $115 billion in 2016, but the Trump administration wants to reduce its $31 billion deficit with India, and is pressing New Delhi to ease trade barriers.
Earlier this year, Trump called out India for its duties on Harley-Davidson motorbikes, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to cut the import duty to 50 percent from 75 percent for the high-end bikes.
But that has not satisfied Trump, who pointed to zero duties for Indian bikes sold in the United States and said he would push for a “reciprocal tax” against countries, including U.S. allies, that levy tariffs on American products.
In the tariff rates issued late on Wednesday, the commerce ministry named some varieties of almonds, apples, chickpeas, lentils, walnuts and artemia that would carry higher import taxes. Most of these are purchased from the United States.
Walnuts have gone from 100 percent duty to 120 percent, the government note said.
India also raised duties on some grades of iron and steel products. In May it had given a list of products to the WTO that it said could incur higher tariffs.
An official from the steel ministry said at the time that the new tariffs were intended to show displeasure at the U.S. action.
“It is an appropriate signal. I am hopeful that all of this (trade war) will die down. In my view this is not in the interest of the global economy,” said Rajiv Kumar, vice chairman of the Indian government’s policy thinktank Niti Aayog.
Rising trade tensions between the United States and some major economies have threatened to derail global growth.
Officials from India and the United States are expected to hold talks on June 26-27 to discuss trade issues, local daily Times of India reported on Thursday citing Press Trust of India.
The U.S. Commerce Department on Wednesday announced a preliminary finding that imports of large-diameter welded pipe from China, India, South Korea and Turkey were subsidized by those countries, and said it was imposing preliminary duties that could top 500 percent.
In a separate trade dispute, Trump threatened on Monday to hit $200 billion of Chinese imports with 10 percent tariffs if Beijing retaliates against his previous announcement to target $50 billion in imports. The United States has accused China of stealing U.S. intellectual property, a charge Beijing denies. ($1 = 68.1700 Indian rupees)
Authorities in Florida have arrested a suspect in the killing of rising rap star XXXTentacion, who was fatally shot in his luxury BMW electric car as he left an upscale motorcycle dealership.
Dedrick Devonshay Williams, 22, of Pompano Beach was arrested shortly before 7 p.m. Wednesday, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said in a news release sent Thursday morning.
Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy, 20, who went by the stage name pronounced “Ex Ex Ex ten-ta-see-YAWN,” was gunned down Monday, bringing a violent end to a brief music career that was marked by controversy and arrests.
Authorities said the rapper was ambushed by two suspects. They did not give a motive in announcing Williams’ arrest but had previously said the shooting was an apparent robbery attempt.
XXXTentacion’s attorney, David Bogenschutz, said Tuesday that investigators told him the rapper had visited a bank shortly before the shooting and possibly withdrew cash to buy a motorcycle at Riva Motorsports in Deerfield Beach.
Williams is charged with first-degree murder without premeditation, a probation violation and for not having a valid driver’s license. He was being held without bond in the Broward County Jail on Thursday.
Court records show Williams has been charged previously with several felonies, including grand theft auto, domestic violence, cocaine possession and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. It does not appear, however, that he has ever done prison time for these charges and some of them were dropped. Williams does not appear in the Florida Department of Corrections offender database.
An attorney for Williams was not listed in jail records.
No further details were immediately available.
XXXTentacion, who sported dreadlocks and facial tattoos, was a rising star. He notched a No. 1 album in March with his sophomore effort “?”and had a top 10 hit with “Sad!”
But he also generated controversy. In 2016, he was arrested on charges including home invasion for a 2015 incident, and less than a month later was jailed on charges that he attacked his girlfriend, who was pregnant at the time. Later, he faced more charges including witness tampering.
In a recent interview with the Miami New Times, XXXTentacion described his upbringing, which included seeing his mother infrequently and being raised by friends, family and baby-sitters. His mother bought him clothes, phones and other gifts. He said he used violence so she would engage with him.
In one video on social media, he said: “If worse things come to worse, I [expletive] die a tragic death or some [expletive], and I’m not able to see out my dreams, I at least want to know that the kids perceive my message and were able to make something of themselves.”
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Maize farmers are preparing as the harvest season approaches in Tanzania’s Kondoa District. The weather has been good and most farmers here expect bumper yields.
Amina Hussein, a mother of four in Mnenia village, is testing a new way to store her harvest.
“In the past, we used to store our produce in normal bags, we would buy them three times a year because we faced the risk of losing harvests to pest infestation,” Hussein said. “But since the introduction of this new technology, using the hermetic storage bags, we are not incurring huge costs anymore to buy chemicals to preserve the maize.”
The bags keep grain dry and fresh, and keep bugs and mold out.
Amina, who is the chairperson of a local farmers’ association, says she used to spend precious cash on pesticides to preserve her maize. The new bags cut that cost.
Grain Losses
About 85 percent of Tanzania’s population lives in rural areas and relies on agriculture for a living. Small-hold farmers constitute the majority of the population.
Here, post-harvest losses are a major concern, especially for grains, which form the base for nutrition and income for Tanzania’s rural communities.
Tanzania’s Ministry of Agriculture estimates that small farmers lose between 15 percent and 40 percent of their harvests each year to mold, mildew, bugs, rats and other causes, says Eliabu Philemon Ndossi, a senior program officer at the ministry.
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 1.3 billion tons of food go to waste globally every year. That’s about a third of the food produced for human consumption around the world.
And post-harvest loss reduces the income of small-hold farmers by 15 percent.
Food Security
Researchers from the University of Zurich and their partners are looking to cut those losses. Their project in Tanzania is looking at ways to help farmers keep more of their grain.
It’s a collaborative effort bringing together government agencies, businesses and international development organizations.
More than 1,000 small-scale farmers in two regions in central Tanzania are involved in the project, which in part uses air-tight and water-tight storage bags instead of normal plastic or cloth bags.
The study is conducted within a larger project that Swiss development agency Helvetas runs to help increase farm income.
But reducing losses is more than an issue of farmers’ income, says Rakesh Munankami, a project manager at Helvetas.
“If we can reduce post-harvest loss, there wouldn’t be any problem with the food security. This study is important because we would like to see what’s the impact at the broader level, how does it affect the price volatility of the crop as well as how does it affect the food security of the smallholder farmers,” he said.
And the study has proven a success. Initial findings show that improved on-farm storage sharply cut the number of food insecure households, said Michael Brander, one of the lead researchers from the University of Zurich.
“We are now one year into the study and the most astonishing finding so far is that we see that the number of people that go hungry has reduced by one third,” he said. “That’s especially astonishing because the intervention has worked very fast.”
Munanakami says he thinks the results can be replicated elsewhere. And the project’s partners hope that will encourage policy makers and aid organizations focus on preventing harvest losses.
Serena Williams says the conversation about stopping domestic abuse shouldn’t just center around women, but men as well.
The tennis superstar says education about domestic abuse should start from when men are young boys.
The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion is the ambassador for Allstate’s Purple Purse foundation, which aims to help stop domestic abuse and what it calls the financial abuse that can accompany such relationships.
Williams says being the mother of an infant daughter makes the issue more important to her.
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Intel Corp Chief Executive Brian Krzanich resigned on Thursday after a probe found his consensual relationship with an employee violated company policy.
The head of the largest U.S. chipmaker is the latest in a line of powerful men in business and politics to lose their jobs or resign over relationships viewed as inappropriate, a phenomenon highlighted by the #MeToo movement.
“An ongoing investigation by internal and external counsel has confirmed a violation of Intel’s non-fraternization policy, which applies to all managers,” Intel said in a statement.
The board named Chief Financial Officer Robert Swan as interim CEO and said it has begun a search for a permanent CEO, including both internal and external candidates.
Intel declined to give any further information about the probe. Intel shares fell 1.5 percent in early trade.
Wall Street took Krzanich’s unexpected departure in stride.
“Although we respect Krzanich’s efforts in redirecting Intel’s strategy from a computer-centric to a data-centric company, we view Intel as a process-driven company with a deep bench of CEO candidates that can continue to drive the corporate strategy,” said Kevin Cassidy, an analyst at Stifel.
Krzanich, 58, was appointed Intel CEO in May 2013, and was in charge of moving the company’s focus to growing data centers from personal computers. Intel shares more than doubled during his tenure.
He was recently credited with containing the fallout from the disclosure of some security flaws in the company’s chips that could allow hackers to steal data from computers, although his sale of some Intel stock before the flaws were disclosed to investors attracted some criticism.
“There are no new payments as part of his departure,” a source familiar with the company told Reuters.
Temporary replacement Swan has been Intel’s CFO since October 2016 and previously spent nine years as CFO of eBay Inc.
Intel on Thursday raised its second-quarter revenue and profit forecast, saying it expects quarterly revenue of about $16.9 billion and adjusted profit of about 99 cents per share, up from a previous forecast of $16.3 billion in revenue and adjusted earnings per share of 85 cents.
Analysts on average were expecting revenue of $16.29 billion and adjusted profit of 85 cents per share.
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China’s decision to stop accepting plastic waste from other countries is causing plastic to pile up around the globe, and wealthy countries must find a way to slow the accumulation of one of the most ubiquitous materials on the planet, a group of scientists said.
The scientists sought to quantify the impact of the Chinese import ban on the worldwide trade in plastic waste, and found that other nations might need to find a home for more than 122 million tons (110 million metric tons) of plastic by 2030. The ban went into effect Dec. 31, 2017, and the stockpiling trend figures to worsen, the scientists said.
Wealthy countries such as the United States, Japan and Germany have long sent their plastic recyclables to China, and the country doesn’t want to be the world’s dumping ground for plastic anymore. The study found China has taken more than 116 million tons (105 million metric tons) of the material since 1992, the equivalent of the weight of more than 300 Empire State Buildings.
The change is forcing countries to rethink how they deal with plastic waste. They need to be more selective about what they choose to recycle, and more fastidious about reusing plastics, said Amy Brooks, first author on the study and a doctoral student in engineering at the University of Georgia. In the meantime, Brooks said, more plastic waste is likely to get incinerated or sent to landfills.
“This is a wake-up call. Historically, we’ve been depending on China to take in this recycled waste and now they are saying no,” she said. “That waste has to be managed, and we have to manage it properly.”
The study was published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. Using United Nations data, it found that China has dwarfed all other plastics importers, accounting for about 45 percent of the world’s plastic waste since 1992. The ban is part of a larger crackdown on foreign garbage, which is viewed as a threat to health and environment.
Some countries that have seen an increase in plastic waste imports since China’s ban — such as Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia — are already looking to enforce bans of their own because they are quickly becoming overburdened, Brooks said.
The study illustrates that plastic, which has a wide array of uses and formulations, is more difficult to recycle than other materials, such as glass and aluminum, said Sherri Mason, who was not involved in the study and is the chair of the geology and environmental sciences department at the State University of New York at Fredonia.
Many consumers attempt to recycle plastic products that can’t ultimately be recycled, Mason said. One solution could be to simplify the variety of plastics used to make products, she said.
“We have to confront this material and our use of it, because so much of it is single use disposable plastic and this is a material that doesn’t go away,” Mason said. “It doesn’t return to the planet the way other materials do.”
The plastics import ban has attracted the attention of the U.S. recycling industry. The National Recycling Coalition said in a statement in mid-May that it must “fundamentally shift how we speak to the public” and “how we collect and process” recyclables.
“We need to look at new uses for these materials,” said Marjorie Griek, the coalition’s executive director. “And how do you get manufacturers to design a product that is more easily recyclable.”
A new film explores the bond between a young man with autism and the sister who cares for him.
Nathan’s Kingdom stars Jacob Lince, a 24-year-old actor who has autism. Cast members say the fantasy-drama was a journey of discovery much like the odyssey of the movie’s characters.
As a child, Lince was diagnosed with high-functioning autism, a condition that hampers the ability to communicate. He developed a talent in acting and became part of a program called Performing Arts Studio West, which provides training for people with developmental disabilities.
“I literally went there, introduced myself and got to really know what they’re all about,” said the film’s writer-director, Olicer J. Munoz. “That’s where Jacob and I discovered each other,” he said.
On a quest
Lince has faced challenges, but none as severe as those faced by the character in the film.
“He is a very complex human being,” Lince said of Nathan, who is battling imaginary demons, embodied through graphic visual effects. “He’s been through a lot in his life, and he’s had this idea in his head since he was very young about ‘the kingdom,’” said Lince, “where he feels he can be safe, and where he can escape all the darkness out there and inside of him.”
The character takes his reluctant sister, Laura, played by Madison Ford, on his quest for the mythical kingdom. Laura is Nathan’s caregiver who is battling a demon of her own — opiate addiction. Together, they embark on a road trip through the Mojave Desert.
An adventure
Ford said that Lince is calm and optimistic, unlike the character in the story.
“Filming this was an adventure in of itself,” she said, “and it was so cool to have an adventure partner there with me,” she said. “Jacob is funny, but he takes his (acting) job seriously, as well,” she added.
The film was a labor of love for Munoz, who had trouble getting funding. He said studios liked the story, but none would offer financing. So, he raised the funds himself with his producers.
“We shot a little bit, ran out of money, raised more money,” he said. “Then we spent all that money for our next block of filming, and then we raised more money. And little by little, we were able to make this film a reality in the course of about 3½ years.”
Fulfilling journey
Nathan’s Kingdom was screened at the historic Grauman’s TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood as a selection of the Dances with Films festival. About 200 films were selected from more than 2,000 entries.
“We want unique, fresh voices,” said festival co-founder Leslee Scallon. “We want it [the festival] also to have great performances.” Nathan’s Kingdom has both, she said.
Cast members had a hard but fulfilling journey, like the characters in the film, Lince said.
“We made a lot of friends, and at the end of the day, I think we all did a great job. And it was a fantastic experience,” he added.
Lince is studying filmmaking in college and hopes to make a career in the movie industry. He also hopes to see more roles for actors on the autism spectrum like him, and more stories like Nathan’s Kingdom on the big screen.
About 1 in 59 children in the United States has been identified as having autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The condition is about four times more common among boys than girls, the CDC notes.
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A new film explores the bond between a young man with autism and the sister who cares for him. The fantasy-drama “Nathan’s Kingdom” stars an actor with autism, and as Mike O’Sullivan reports, the film was a journey of discovery for the cast and filmmaker.
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June 21st is World Giraffe Day, celebrating the iconic long-necked African animal. But giraffe populations have been decreasing at a rapid pace, and researchers warn they could become extinct in the near future. In northern Kenya, a conservation program is working to protect the native reticulated giraffe, known for its distinctive striped patterns. VOA’s Deborah Block has more.
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U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross faced tough questions during a Senate hearing Wednesday on the Trump administration’s tariff proposals and actions. Senators on both sides of the aisle criticized the administration’s rollout of proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff has more on the fallout from Washington.
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