Day: February 8, 2022

Latin America Nations Slam French Auction of Pre-Hispanic Artifacts

By Uponent | | No Comments | Business, Entertainment

Ambassadors from six Latin American countries on Tuesday denounced an upcoming auction of pre-Hispanic artifacts in France, reviving a longstanding grievance of the region. 

The joint statement came a day after Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador denounced the practice as immoral after a recent major auction. 

The Paris ambassadors of Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru and the Dominican Republic condemned “in the strongest terms” the sale of pre-Hispanic artifacts organized by auction houses in the coming days. 

In their joint statement, they called for the auctions to be halted. 

They denounced what they said was the “continuation of practices linked to the illicit trade in cultural property, which damage the heritage, history and identity of our native peoples.” 

The ambassadors of Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Peru made a similar appeal last November. 

On Monday, Mexico’s Lopez Obrador called on France to legislate on the issue, after the January 28 sale by the Millon auction house of 30 pre-Hispanic Mexican artifacts, despite protests from Mexico City. 

In recent years, Mexico has been trying to recover artifacts in the hands of private collectors around the world, with only partial success. 

As well as calling for artworks to be returned, Mexico has accused major European fashion houses of cultural appropriation for lifting native designs for their clothes. 

It is part of an ongoing debate over the ethics of cultural artifacts held by museums and private owners in former colonial powers, and questions about how they were acquired in the first place. 

 
…

more

‘Power of the Dog’ Tops Oscar Nominations With 12; ‘Dune’ Nabs 10

By Uponent | | No Comments | Business, Entertainment

Jane Campion’s gothic western “The Power of the Dog” led nominations to the 94th Academy Awards, where streaming services more than ever before swept over Hollywood’s top honors.

In nominations announced Tuesday, Campion’s film landed a leading 12 nominations, including nods for best picture, best director and all of its top actors: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee.

Campion, a nominee for 1993′s “The Piano,” became the first woman to ever be nominated twice for best director. Last year, Chloé Zhao became just the second woman to ever win the award. Campion’s director of photography, Ari Wegner, also became the second woman ever nominated for best cinematography. The only previous woman to do so was Rachel Morrison for “Mudbound” in 2018.

Denis Villeneuve’s majestic sci-fi epic “Dune” followed closely behind with 10 nominations.

The nominees for best picture are: “Belfast”; “The Power of the Dog”; “Dune”; “Drive My Car”; “West Side Story”; “Don’t Look Up”; “Licorice Pizza”; “CODA”; “King Richard”; “Nightmare Alley.”

Nominations were announced Tuesday morning in Los Angeles by Leslie Jordan and Tracee Ellis Ross.

A largely virtual awards season added some unpredictability to this year’s nominations, which are occurring later than usual. To make way for the Olympics, the Oscars will be held March 27 and will return to their usual venue, the Dolby Theatre.

The nominees for best actress are: Jessica Chastain, “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”; Olivia Colman, “The Lost Daughter”; Penélope Cruz, “Parallel Mothers”; Nicole Kidman, “Being the Ricardos”; Kristen Stewart, “Spencer.”

The nominees for best actor are: Will Smith, “King Richard”; Javier Bardem, “Being the Ricardos”; Benedict Cumberbatch, “The Power of the Dog” and Andrew Garfield, “Tick, Tick … Boom!” and Denzel Washington, “The Tragedy of Macbeth.”

The nominees for best supporting actress are: Jessie Buckley, “The Lost Daughter”; Ariana DeBose, “West Side Story”; Judi Dench, “Belfast”; Kirsten Dunst, “The Power of the Dog” and Aunjanue Ellis, “King Richard.”

The nominees for best supporting actor are: Ciarán Hinds, “Belfast”; Troy Kotsur, “CODA”; Kodi Smit-McPhee, “The Power of the Dog”; Jesse Plemons, “The Power of the Dog” and J.K. Simmons, “Being the Ricardos.”

The nominees for original song are: “Be Alive” from “King Richard”; “Dos Oruguitas” from “Encanto”; “Down To Joy” from “Belfast”; “No Time To Die” from “No Time to Die”; “Somehow You Do” from “Four Good Days.”

The nominees for best animated feature are: “Encanto”; “Flee”; “Luca”; “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” and “Raya and the Last Dragon.”

The nominees for documentary feature are: “Summer of Soul (Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)”; “Flee”; “Attica”; “Ascension” and “Writing With Fire.”

Nominees for best director are: Paul Thomas Anderson, “Licorice Pizza”; Kenneth Branagh, “Belfast”; Jane Campion, “The Power of the Dog”; Steven Spielberg, “West Side Story” and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, “Drive My Car.”

The nominees for best original score are: “Don’t Look Up”; “Dune”; “Encanto”; “Parallel Mothers” and “The Power of the Dog.”

The nominees for costume design are: “Cruella”; “Cyrano”; “Dune”; “Nightmare Alley”; “West Side Story.”

The nominees for original screenplay are: “Belfast”; “Don’t Look Up”; “King Richard”; “Licorice Pizza” and “The Worst Person in the World.”

The nominees for adapted screenplay are: “CODA”; “Drive My Car”; “Dune”; “The Lost Daughter”; and “The Power of the Dog.”

In pulling from films released in myriad ways, these Oscar nominations reflect a tumultuous pandemic year for Hollywood that began with many theaters shuttered and ended with Sony Pictures’ “Spider-Man: No Way Home” smashing box-office records.

In between, much of the normal rhythm of the movie business was transformed, as studios pushed some of the biggest movies of the year to streaming services in a bid to lure subscribers. Films including “Dune” (despite the objections of its director), Pixar’s “Luca” and “King Richard” were among those that went straight to homes.

As COVID-19 cases surged in the last two months due to the omicron variant, much of Oscar season also turned virtual. Last year, the pandemic led the academy to host a delayed Oscars in a socially distanced ceremony at Los Angeles’ Union Station. Ratings plummeted to an all-time low of 9.85 million viewers.

This year, the academy has yet to map out plans for its show, except that it will include a host for the first time since 2018. For better or worse, the Academy Awards will also be without its usual lead-in. The Golden Globes in January were an untelevised non-event after NBC said it wouldn’t air them in 2022 while the beleaguered Hollywood Foreign Press reformed itself after ethics and diversity criticism.

Other changes were more subtle but potentially impactful. For the first time, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences ruled out hard-copy DVD screeners for its members, who instead could watch submissions on the academy’s streaming platform.
…

more

Use of Technology at Beijing Olympics Adds Precautions, Raises Concerns

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Business, Science, Silicon Valley

At the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, China is using technology to keep athletes and visitors safe as part of its pandemic precautions. But for visitors, the use of technology can come with security and privacy concerns. Michelle Quinn reports. Carolyn Presutti contributed.
…

more

Report Calls for New US Strategy for Opioids

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Business, Science, Silicon Valley

The U.S. needs a nimble, multipronged strategy and Cabinet-level leadership to counter its festering overdose epidemic, a bipartisan congressional commission advises.

With vastly powerful synthetic drugs like fentanyl driving record overdose deaths, the scourge of opioids awaits after the COVID-19 pandemic finally recedes, a shift that public health experts expect in the months ahead.

“This is one of our most pressing national security, law enforcement and public health challenges, and we must do more as a nation and a government to protect our most precious resource — American lives,” the Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking said in a 70-page report released Tuesday to Congress, President Joe Biden and the American people.

The report envisions a dynamic strategy. It would rely on law enforcement and diplomacy to shut down sources of chemicals used to make synthetic opioids. It would offer treatment and support for people who become addicted, creating pathways that can lead back to productive lives. And it would invest in research to better understand addiction’s grip on the human brain and to develop treatments for opioid use disorder.

The global coronavirus pandemic has overshadowed the American opioid epidemic for the last two years, but recent news that overdose deaths surpassed 100,000 in one year caught the public’s attention. Politically, federal legislation to address the opioid crisis won support across the partisan divide during both the Obama and Trump administrations.

Rep. David Trone, D-Md., a co-chair of the panel that produced the report, said he believes that support is still there, and that the issue appeals to Biden’s pragmatic side. “The president has been crystal clear,” Trone said. “These are two major issues in America: addiction and mental health.”

The U.S. government’s record is also clear. It has been waging a losing “war on drugs” for decades.

The stakes are much higher now with the widespread availability of fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller 80 to 100 times more powerful than morphine. It can be baked into illicit pills made to look like prescription painkillers or anti-anxiety medicines. The chemical raw materials are produced mainly in China. Criminal networks in Mexico control the production and shipment to the U.S.

Federal anti-drug strategy traditionally emphasized law enforcement and long prison sentences. But that came to be seen as tainted by racial bias and counter-productive because drug use is treatable. The value of treatment has recently has gained recognition with anti-addiction medicines in wide use alongside older strategies like support groups.

The report endorsed both law enforcement and treatment, working in sync with one another.

“Through its work, the commission came to recognize the impossibility of reducing the availability of illegal synthetic opioids through efforts focused on supply alone,” the report said.

“Real progress can come only by pairing illicit synthetic opioid supply disruption with decreasing the domestic U.S. demand for these drugs,” it added.

The report recommends what it calls five “pillars” for government action:

Elevating the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy to act as the nerve center for far-flung federal efforts, and restoring Cabinet rank to its director.
Disrupting the supply of drugs through better coordinated law enforcement actions.
Reducing the demand for illicit drugs through treatment and by efforts to mitigate the harm to people addicted. Treatment programs should follow science-based "best practices."
Using diplomacy to enlist help from other governments in cutting off the supply of chemicals that criminal networks use to manufacture fentanyl.
Developing surveillance and data analysis tools to spot new trends in illicit drug use before they morph into major problems for society.

Trone said it’s going to take cooperation from both political parties. “We have to take this toxic atmosphere in Washington and move past it,” he said. “Because 100,000 people, that’s husbands, sisters, mothers, fathers. As a country, we are better than that.”
…

more

World Must Work Together to Tackle Plastic Ocean Threat: WWF

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Business, Science, Silicon Valley

Paris — Plastic has infiltrated all parts of the ocean and is now found “in the smallest plankton up to the largest whale” wildlife group WWF said on Tuesday, calling for urgent efforts to create an international treaty on plastics.

Tiny fragments of plastic have reached even the most remote and seemingly pristine regions of the planet: it peppers Arctic sea ice and has been found inside fish in the deepest recesses of the ocean, the Mariana Trench.

There is no international agreement in place to address the problem, although delegates meeting in Nairobi for a United Nations environment meeting this month are expected to launch talks on a worldwide plastics treaty.

WWF sought to bolster the case for action in its latest report, which synthesizes more than 2,000 separate scientific studies on the impacts of plastic pollution on the oceans, biodiversity and marine ecosystems.

The report acknowledged that there is currently insufficient evidence to estimate the potential repercussions on humans.

But it found that the fossil-fuel derived substance “has reached every part of the ocean, from the sea surface to the deep ocean floor, from the poles to coastlines of the most remote islands and is detectable in the smallest plankton up to the largest whale.”

According to some estimates, between 19 and 23 million tons of plastic waste is washed into the world’s waterways every year, the WWF report said.

This is largely from single-use plastics, which still constitute more than 60% of marine pollution, although more and more countries are acting to ban their use.

“In many places (we are) reaching some kind of saturation point for marine ecosystems, where we’re approaching levels that pose a significant threat,” said Eirik Lindebjerg, Global Plastics Policy Manager at WWF.

In some places there is a risk of “ecosystem collapse,” he said.

Many people have seen images of seabirds choking on plastic straws or turtles wrapped in discarded fishing nets, but he said the danger is across the entire marine food web.

It “will affect not only the whale and the seal and the turtle, but huge fish stocks and the animals that depend on those,” he added.

In one 2021 study, 386 fish species were found to have ingested plastic, out of 555 tested.

Separate research, looking at the major commercially fished species, found up to 30% of cod in a sample caught in the North Sea had microplastics in their stomach.

Once in the water, the plastic begins to degrade, becoming smaller and smaller until it is a “nano plastic,” invisible to the naked eye.

So even if all plastic pollution stopped completely, the volume of microplastics in the oceans could still double by 2050.

But plastic production continues to rise, potentially doubling by 2040, according to projections cited by WWF, with ocean plastic pollution expected to triple during the same period.

Lindebjerg compares the situation to the climate crisis — and the concept of a “carbon budget,” that caps the maximum amount of CO2 that can be released into the atmosphere before a global warming cap is exceeded.

“There is actually a limit to how much plastic pollution our marine ecosystems can absorb,” he said.

Those limits have already been reached for microplastics in several parts of the world, according to WWF, particularly in the Mediterranean, the Yellow and East China Seas (between China, Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula) and in the Arctic sea ice.

“We need to treat it as a fixed system that doesn’t absorb plastic, and that’s why we need to go towards zero emissions, zero pollution as fast as possible,” said Lindebjerg.

WWF is calling for talks aimed at drawing up an international agreement on plastics at the U.N. environment meeting, from February 28 to March 2 in Nairobi.

It wants any treaty to lead to global standards of production and real “recyclability.”

Trying to clean up the oceans is “extremely difficult and extremely expensive,” Lindebjerg said, adding that it was better on all metrics not to pollute in the first place.
…

more

Take a Sad Song and Make It Better: ‘Hey Jude’ NFT Fetches $77,000 

By Uponent | | No Comments | Business, Entertainment

 A virtual version of the handwritten notes for the song “Hey Jude” has been sold at auction in California for almost $77,000, the latest hammer price success for NFTs.   

Originally entitled “Hey Jules,” the Fab Four’s hit was written in 1968 by Paul McCartney to comfort a young Julian Lennon during father John’s separation from his mother, Cynthia.     

The NFT version of the notes was presented as an animation in which the words are progressively inscribed on the page and was accompanied by an audio commentary from Lennon junior.  

“For me, just looking at a picture is not enough if I was a buyer,” Lennon earlier told AFP in Los Angeles. “So I wanted to add something a little more personal. And for me, that was writing and narrating a little bit of story that would be behind the images.”

The sale, by Julien’s Auctions, also included an NFT of the Afghan coat worn by his father on the set of “Magical Mystery Tour,” which fetched $22,400 

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique digital objects that confer ownership.   

While their content may be copyable, the NFT is “the original,” in much the same way that there are innumerable prints of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” but only the Louvre Museum has the original.    

Investors and wealthy collectors have clamored in recent months to get involved in the latest digital craze, which relies on the same blockchain technology that powers cryptocurrencies and cannot be forged or otherwise manipulated.    

Recent auctions have seen eye-watering sums paid for NFTs, including a staggering $69.3 million for a digital work by artist Beeple at a sale at Christie’s. 

 
…

more

What to Watch for When Oscar Nominations Are Announced Tuesday 

By Uponent | | No Comments | Business, Entertainment

It’s time again to celebrate Hollywood’s grandest ambitions and most daring risk takers.

No, I’m not talking about Jackass Forever.

On Tuesday morning, nominations for the 94th annual Academy Awards will be announced. Nominations are occurring a little later than usual. To make way for the Olympics, the Oscars are to be held March 27.

And for the second straight year, the Oscars will unfold during the pandemic. The industrial complex of parties, galas and little gold statuettes known as “awards season” has again gone largely virtual, sapping the season of some of its usual buzz. The Oscars’ typical opening act — the Golden Globes — were much reduced and untelevised this year.

But the Oscar nominations, which will be announced Tuesday beginning at 8:18 a.m. EST by presenters Tracee Ellis Ross and Leslie Jordan, will try to again seize the spotlight after a year of profound change for the industry and a still-unfolding recovery for movie theaters. Nominations will be broadcast live on Oscar.com, Oscars.org, the academy’s social media accounts and on ABC’s Good Morning America.

But those are far from the only headwinds facing the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Last year’s Oscars, held in late April at an audience-less Union Station rather than the Oscars’ usual home, the Dolby Theatre, plummeted to an all-time low of 9.85 million viewers.

Can Tuesday’s slate of nominees stem the tide? Among the films expected to do well are Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic Dune, Kenneth Branagh’s autobiographical coming-of-age tale Belfast and Jane Campion’s gothic western The Power of the Dog. Alas, Jackass Forever, the current no. 1 movie at the box office, will have to wait until next year.

Here are five questions heading into nominations.

Just how much will streamers dominate?

Streaming services have for years made inroads into the Oscars, but they may overwhelm this year’s best-picture field. After academy rule changes, 10 films will be nominated for best picture, and it’s possible that only a few of them will have opened traditionally in theaters. Netflix, which is still pursuing its first best-picture trophy, has three contenders in The Power of the Dog, Adam McKay’s apocalyptic comedy Don’t Look Up and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical adaptation Tick, Tick … Boom!

Apple has the deaf family drama CODA and Joel Coen’s Shakespeare adaptation The Tragedy of Macbeth. Amazon is represented with Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos.

Two films that premiered simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max — Dune and the Will Smith-led King Richard — are in the hunt. That has made contenders like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza (MGM, Focus Features) and Belfast (Focus) stand out as theater-first throwbacks.

Will the biggest box-office hits crash the party?

Given the waning audience for the Oscars and a tumultuous year for theaters, some would like to see as many crowd-pleasers represented Tuesday as possible. Could Spider-Man: No Way Home, the biggest hit of the pandemic with $749 million in domestic ticket sales and $1.77 billion globally, or Daniel Craig’s 007 swan song No Time to Die ($774 million worldwide) score a best picture nomination?

As much as the Oscars’ populism could use some pop, don’t count on either to join the 10 nominees. The segment of the academy most supportive of big-budget box-office success — producers — passed up the chance to do so in their highly predictive guild nominations. That

would likely leave Dune ($399 million worldwide) as the category’s biggest ticket seller. But there are also other metrics to measure today’s most popular movies. Don’t Look Up is Netflix’s second-most popular movie ever with some 359,790,000 hours watched, according to the company.

How international will the nominees be?

Two years after Bong Joon Ho’s Korean thriller Parasite won best picture, a group of acclaimed international films could vie in several top categories. While no film has the broad support that made Parasite the first non-English language film to win Hollywood’s top honor, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s masterful three-hour Japanese drama Drive My Car could squeeze into best picture, best director or best screenplay.

Other films with strong support outside of the academy’s best international film category including Pedro Almodovar’s Parallel Mothers (look for Penélope Cruz in the uber-competitive best actress category), Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero, Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World, Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God and Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated Flee.

In expanding and diversifying its membership in recent years, the academy has grown more international — and enlarged the sway of overseas voters.

Will Kristen Stewart get in?

Kristen Stewart had once been widely expected to land her first Oscar nomination for her performance as Princess Diana in Pablo Larrain’s Spencer. But that film has proved divisive among critics and moviegoers, and Stewart’s once sturdy Oscar bid now appears far from certain.

The 31-year-old actor was looked over by the Screen Actors Guild and the BAFTAs. She could mount a comeback with the academy, but best actress is brutal this year. Among the favorites: Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter), Lady Gaga (House of Gucci), Jennifer Hudson (Respect), Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos), Cruz, Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye) and Alana Haim (Licorice Pizza).

If Stewart isn’t snubbed, someone — several someones — will be.

Will enough people watch?

This is probably the biggest question facing the Oscars this year, and it hovers over everything. Ratings for award shows all around have been declining for years, but the pandemic and the growth of streaming has accelerated the dismantling of Hollywood tradition.

This year, the academy has signaled that everything is on the table. Should Spider-Man star Tom Holland be called upon to emcee?

No details have yet been announced about the show, but the academy has said there will be a host for the first time since 2018.

Maybe Johnny Knoxville has a few tricks up his sleeve?
…

more

‘Amazing’ New Beans Could Save Coffee From Climate Change

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Business, Science, Silicon Valley

Millions of people around the world enjoy a daily cup of coffee; however, their daily caffeine fix could be under threat because climate change is killing coffee plants, putting farmers’ livelihoods at risk.

Inside the vast, steamy greenhouses at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in the leafy suburbs of west London, Aaron Davis leads the research into coffee.

“Arabica coffee, our preferred coffee, provides us with about 60% of the coffee that we drink globally. It’s a delicious coffee, it’s the one we love to drink. The other species is robusta coffee, which provides us with the other 40% of the coffee we drink – but that mainly goes into instant coffees and espresso mixes,” Davis explains.

The cultivation of arabica and robusta coffee beans accounts for millions of livelihoods across Africa, South America and Asia.

“These coffees have served us very well for many centuries, but under climate change they’re facing problems,” Davis says.

“Arabica is a cool tropical plant; it doesn’t like high temperatures. Robusta is a plant that likes even moist conditions; it likes high rainfall. And under climate change, rainfall patters are being modified, and it’s also experiencing problems. In some cases, yields are dramatically reduced because of increased temperatures or reduced rainfall. But in some cases, as we’ve seen in Ethiopia, you might get a complete harvest failure and death of the trees.”

The solution could be growing deep in the forests of West Africa. There are around 130 species of coffee plant – but not all taste good. In Sierra Leone, scientists from Kew helped to identify one candidate, stenophylla, growing in the wild.

“This is extremely heat tolerant. And is an interesting species because it matches arabica in terms of its superb taste,” Davis says.

Two other coffee species also show promise for commercial cultivation in a changing climate: liberica and eugenioides, which “has low yields and very small beans, but it has an amazing taste,” according to Davis.

Some believe the taste is far superior. At the 2021 World Barista Championship in Milan, Australia’s Hugh Kelly won third prize with his eugenioides espresso. Kelly recalled the first time he tasted it at a remote farm in Colombia. “It was a coffee like I’ve never tasted before; as I tasted it, it was unbelievably sweet … I knew that sweetness and gentle acidity were the bones for an incredible espresso,” Kelly told judges in Milan.

Researchers hope Kelly’s success could be the breakthrough moment for these relatively unknown beans.

The team at the Botanic Gardens is working with farmers in Africa on cultivating the new coffees commercially. Catherine Kiwuka of the Ugandan National Agricultural Research Organization, who oversees some of the projects, says challenges still lie ahead.

“What requirements do they need? How do we boost its productivity? Instead of it being dominated by only two species, we have the opportunity to tap into the value of other coffee species.”

It’s hoped that substantial volumes of liberica coffee will be exported from Uganda to Europe this year. Researchers hope it will provide a sustainable income for farmers – and an exciting new taste for coffee drinkers.
…

more