Two female entrepreneurs in Mozambique have started businesses that help fight climate change and reduce pollution. Amarilis Gule has this story from the capital, Maputo. Michele Joseph narrates.
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Month: March 2024
LOS ANGELES — Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries “Roots,” has died. He was 87.
Gossett’s first cousin Neal L. Gossett told The Associated Press that the actor died Thursday night in Santa Monica, California. No cause of death was revealed.
Gossett’s cousin remembered a man who walked with Nelson Mandela and who also was a great joke teller, a relative who faced and fought racism with dignity and humor.
“Never mind the awards, never mind the glitz and glamour, the Rolls-Royces and the big houses in Malibu. It’s about the humanity of the people that he stood for,” his cousin said.
Louis Gossett always thought of his early career as a reverse Cinderella story, with success finding him from an early age and propelling him forward, toward his Academy Award for “An Officer and a Gentleman.”
He earned his first acting credit in his Brooklyn high school’s production of “You Can’t Take It with You” while he was sidelined from the basketball team with an injury.
“I was hooked — and so was my audience,” he wrote in his 2010 memoir “An Actor and a Gentleman.”
His English teacher urged him to go into Manhattan to try out for “Take a Giant Step.” He got the part and made his Broadway debut in 1953 at age 16.
“I knew too little to be nervous,” Gossett wrote. “In retrospect, I should have been scared to death as I walked onto that stage, but I wasn’t.”
Gossett attended New York University on a basketball and drama scholarship. He was soon acting and singing on TV shows hosted by David Susskind, Ed Sullivan, Red Buttons, Merv Griffin, Jack Paar and Steve Allen.
Gossett became friendly with James Dean and studied acting with Marilyn Monroe, Martin Landau and Steve McQueen at an offshoot of the Actors Studio taught by Frank Silvera.
In 1959, Gossett received critical acclaim for his role in the Broadway production of “A Raisin in the Sun” along with Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Diana Sands.
He went on to become a star on Broadway, replacing Billy Daniels in “Golden Boy” with Sammy Davis Jr. in 1964.
Gossett went to Hollywood for the first time in 1961 to make the film version of “A Raisin in the Sun.” He had bitter memories of that trip, staying in a cockroach-infested motel that was one of the few places to allow Black people.
In 1968, he returned to Hollywood for a major role in “Companions in Nightmare,” NBC’s first made-for-TV movie that starred Melvyn Douglas, Anne Baxter and Patrick O’Neal.
This time, Gossett was booked into the Beverly Hills Hotel and Universal Studios had rented him a convertible. Driving back to the hotel after picking up the car, he was stopped by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s officer who ordered him to turn down the radio and put up the car’s roof before letting him go.
Within minutes, he was stopped by eight sheriff’s officers, who had him lean against the car and made him open the trunk while they called the car rental agency before letting him go.
“Though I understood that I had no choice but to put up with this abuse, it was a terrible way to be treated, a humiliating way to feel,” Gossett wrote in his memoir. “I realized this was happening because I was Black and had been showing off with a fancy car — which, in their view, I had no right to be driving.”
After dinner at the hotel, he went for a walk and was stopped a block away by a police officer, who told him he broke a law prohibiting walking around residential Beverly Hills after 9 p.m. Two other officers arrived and Gossett said he was chained to a tree and handcuffed for three hours. He was eventually freed when the original police car returned.
“Now I had come face-to-face with racism, and it was an ugly sight,” he wrote. “But it was not going to destroy me.”
In the late 1990s, Gossett said he was pulled over by police on the Pacific Coast Highway while driving his restored 1986 Rolls Royce Corniche II. The officer told him he looked like someone they were searching for, but the officer recognized Gossett and left.
He founded the Eracism Foundation to help create a world where racism doesn’t exist.
Gossett made a series of guest appearances on such shows as “Bonanza,” “The Rockford Files,” “The Mod Squad,” “McCloud” and a memorable turn with Richard Pryor on “The Partridge Family.”
In August 1969, Gossett had been partying with members of the Mamas and the Papas when they were invited to actor Sharon Tate’s house. He headed home first to shower and change clothes. As he was getting ready to leave, he caught a news flash on TV about Tate’s murder. She and others were killed by Charles Manson’s associates that night.
“There had to be a reason for my escaping this bullet,” he wrote.
Louis Cameron Gossett was born on May 27, 1936, in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, New York, to Louis Sr., a porter, and Hellen, a nurse. He later added Jr. to his name to honor his father.
Gossett broke through on the small screen as Fiddler in the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries “Roots,” which depicted the atrocities of slavery on TV. The sprawling cast included Ben Vereen, LeVar Burton and John Amos.
Gossett became the third Black Oscar nominee in the supporting actor category in 1983. He won for his performance as the intimidating Marine drill instructor in “An Officer and a Gentleman” opposite Richard Gere and Debra Winger. He also won a Golden Globe for the same role.
“More than anything, it was a huge affirmation of my position as a Black actor,” he wrote in his memoir.
“The Oscar gave me the ability of being able to choose good parts in movies like ‘Enemy Mine,’ ‘Sadat’ and ‘Iron Eagle,'” Gossett said in Dave Karger’s 2024 book “50 Oscar Nights.”
He said his statue was in storage.
“I’m going to donate it to a library so I don’t have to keep an eye on it,” he said in the book. “I need to be free of it.”
Gossett appeared in such TV movies as “The Story of Satchel Paige,” “Backstairs at the White House, “The Josephine Baker Story,” for which he won another Golden Globe, and “Roots Revisited.”
But he said winning an Oscar didn’t change the fact that all his roles were supporting ones.
He played an obstinate patriarch in the 2023 remake of “The Color Purple.”
Gossett struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction for years after his Oscar win. He went to rehab, where he was diagnosed with toxic mold syndrome, which he attributed to his house in Malibu.
In 2010, Gossett announced he had prostate cancer, which he said was caught in the early stages. In 2020, he was hospitalized with COVID-19.
He also is survived by sons Satie, a producer-director from his second marriage, and Sharron, a chef whom he adopted after seeing the 7-year-old in a TV segment on children in desperate situations. His first cousin is actor Robert Gossett.
Gossett’s first marriage to Hattie Glascoe was annulled. His second, to Christina Mangosing, ended in divorce in 1975 as did his third to actor Cyndi James-Reese in 1992.
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TOKYO — Oppenheimer finally premiered Friday in the nation where two cities were obliterated 79 years ago by the nuclear weapons invented by the American scientist who was the subject of the Oscar-winning film. Japanese filmgoers’ reactions understandably were mixed and highly emotional.
Toshiyuki Mimaki, who survived the bombing of Hiroshima when he was 3, said he has been fascinated by the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, often called “the father of the atomic bomb” for leading the Manhattan Project.
“What were the Japanese thinking, carrying out the attack on Pearl Harbor, starting a war they could never hope to win?” he said, sadness in his voice, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
He is now chairperson of a group of bomb victims called the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organization and he saw Oppenheimer at a preview event. “During the whole movie, I was waiting and waiting for the Hiroshima bombing scene to come on, but it never did,” Mimaki said.
Oppenheimer does not directly depict what happened on the ground when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, turning some 100,000 people instantly into ashes, and killed thousands more in the days that followed, mostly civilians.
The film instead focuses on Oppenheimer as a person and his internal conflicts.
The film’s release in Japan, more than eight months after it opened in the U.S., had been watched with trepidation because of the sensitivity of the subject matter.
Former Hiroshima Mayor Takashi Hiraoka, who spoke at a preview event for the film in the southwestern city, was more critical of what was omitted.
“From Hiroshima’s standpoint, the horror of nuclear weapons was not sufficiently depicted,” he was quoted as saying by Japanese media. “The film was made in a way to validate the conclusion that the atomic bomb was used to save the lives of Americans.”
Some moviegoers offered praise. One man emerging from a Tokyo theater Friday said the movie was great, stressing that the topic was of great interest to Japanese, although emotionally volatile as well. Another said he got choked up over the film’s scenes depicting Oppenheimer’s inner turmoil. Neither man would give his name to an Associated Press journalist.
In a sign of the historical controversy, a backlash flared last year over the “Barbenheimer” marketing phenomenon that merged pink-and-fun Barbie with seriously intense Oppenheimer. Warner Bros. Japan, which distributed Barbie in the country, apologized after some memes depicted the Mattel doll with atomic blast imagery.
Kazuhiro Maeshima, professor at Sophia University, who specializes in U.S. politics, called the film an expression of “an American conscience.”
Those who expect an anti-war movie may be disappointed. But the telling of Oppenheimer’s story in a Hollywood blockbuster would have been unthinkable several decades ago, when justification of nuclear weapons dominated American sentiments, Maeshima said.
“The work shows an America that has changed dramatically,” he said in a telephone interview.
Others suggested the world might be ready for a Japanese response to that story.
Takashi Yamazaki, director of Godzilla Minus One, which won the Oscar for visual effects and is a powerful statement on nuclear catastrophe in its own way, suggested he might be the man for that job.
“I feel there needs to an answer from Japan to Oppenheimer. Someday, I would like to make that movie,” he said in an online dialogue with Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan.
Nolan heartily agreed.
Hiroyuki Shinju, a lawyer, noted Japan and Germany also carried out wartime atrocities, even as the nuclear threat grows around the world. Historians say Japan was also working on nuclear weapons during World War II and would have almost certainly used them against other nations, Shinju said.
“This movie can serve as the starting point for addressing the legitimacy of the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as humanity’s, and Japan’s, reflections on nuclear weapons and war,” he wrote in his commentary on Oppenheimer published by the Tokyo Bar Association.
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WASHINGTON — Latin America and the Caribbean should prepare for their worst dengue season ever, as global warming and the El Niño climate phenomenon fuel the mosquito-borne epidemic, a U.N. health agency warned Thursday.
In less than three months in 2024, regional health authorities have already tallied more than 3.5 million cases and a thousand deaths from the virus, which is spread by the bite of an infected mosquito.
“Probably this will be the worst dengue season [in the region],” said Jarbas Barbosa, director of the Pan American Health Organization.
The 3.5 million cases recorded so far are three times more than the number of infections at this point in 2023, a record year that saw 4.5 million cases, Barbosa said.
Dengue, which can cause hemorrhagic fever, is common in hotter countries and occurs mainly in urban and semi-urban areas.
It infects an estimated 100 million to 400 million people yearly, though most cases are mild or asymptomatic, according to the World Health Organization.
The increase in the number of infections is seen in all countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, but especially in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, which represent 92% of all cases and 87% of deaths.
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A space launch aborted only to find success days later. Plus, Japan makes a push into private spaceflight, and NASA really wants you to see the solar eclipse — but safety first. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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TOKYO — Japan’s unmanned moon lander woke up after surviving a second frigid, two-week lunar night and transmitted new images back to Earth, the country’s space agency said Thursday.
“We received a response from SLIM last night and confirmed that SLIM had successfully completed its second overnight,” the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said in a post on the official X account for its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) probe.
“Since the sun was still high in the sky last night and the equipment was still hot, we recorded images of the usual scenery with the navigational camera, among other activities, for a short period of time,” it added.
A black-and-white photo of the rocky surface of a crater accompanied the post on X, formerly Twitter.
The SLIM lander touched down in January at a wonky angle that left its solar panels facing the wrong way.
Around three hours after the landing — which made Japan only the fifth nation to touch down on the moon — JAXA decided to switch SLIM off with 12% power remaining to allow for a possible resumption later on.
As the sun’s angle shifted, the probe came back to life in late January for two days and carried out scientific observations of a crater with a high-spec camera.
But the spacecraft was not designed for the freezing, fortnight-long lunar nights, when the temperature plunges to minus 133 degrees Celsius.
So space agency scientists had cause for celebration when it was successfully revived in late February after its first lunar night.
JAXA has dubbed SLIM the “Moon Sniper” for its precision landing technology.
The aim of the mission is to examine a part of the moon’s mantle — the usually deep inner layer beneath its crust — that is believed to be accessible.
Thursday’s news came after an uncrewed American lander called Odysseus — the first private spaceship to successfully land on the moon — was unable to wake up, its manufacturer said on Saturday, even after its solar panels were projected to receive enough sunlight to turn on its radio.
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LONDON — Books about the dizzying impact of the internet and artificial intelligence are among finalists for a new book prize that aims to help fix the gender imbalance in nonfiction publishing.
The shortlisted six books for the inaugural Women’s Prize for Nonfiction, announced on Wednesday, include Canadian author-activist Naomi Klein’s “Doppleganger,” a plunge into online misinformation, and British journalist Madhumita Murgia’s “Code-Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI.”
The 30,000 pound ($38,000) award is a sister to the 29-year-old Women’s Prize for Fiction and is open to female English-language writers from any country in any nonfiction genre.
The finalists also include autobiographical works — poet Safiya Sinclair’s “How to Say Babylon: A Jamaican Memoir” and British art critic Laura Cumming’s “Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death.”
Rounding out the list are British author Noreen Masud’s travelogue-memoir “A Flat Place,” and Harvard history professor Tiya Miles’ “All That She Carried,” a history of American enslavement told through one Black family’s keepsake.
British historian Suzannah Lipscomb, who is chairing the judging panel, said that “the readers of these books will never see the world — be it through art, history, landscape, politics, religion or technology — the same again.”
The winners of both nonfiction and fiction prizes will be announced at a ceremony in London on June 13.
The prize was set up in response to a gender imbalance in the book world, where men buy more nonfiction than women — and write more prize-wining nonfiction books.
The company Nielsen Book Research found in 2019 that while women bought 59% of all the books sold in the United Kingdom, men accounted for just over half of adult nonfiction purchases.
Prize organizers say that in 2022, only 26.5% of nonfiction books reviewed in Britain’s newspapers were by women, and male writers dominated established nonfiction writing prizes.
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MADRID — A prosecutor at Spain’s High Court is seeking a prison sentence of 2-1/2 years for former soccer federation chief Luis Rubiales over his unsolicited kiss on player Jenni Hermoso, a court document seen by Reuters on Wednesday showed.
Prosecutor Marta Durantez charged Rubiales with one count of sexual assault and one of coercion for his alleged actions in the aftermath of the kiss, offenses carrying jail terms of one year and one-and-a-half years, respectively.
Rubiales, 46, unleashed a furor when he grabbed Hermoso and kissed her on the lips on Aug. 20 of last year during the awards ceremony after Spain’s victory in the women’s World Cup in Sydney.
Hermoso and her teammates said the kiss was unwanted and demeaning, but Rubiales argued it was consensual and denied any wrongdoing.
The prosecutor also accused the former coach of the women’s national team, Jorge Vilda, the team’s current sporting director, Albert Luque, and the federation’s head of marketing, Ruben Rivera, of coercing Hermoso into saying the kiss was consensual.
All three have denied wrongdoing when they appeared before the court.
Durantez seeks to have Rubiales pay $54,080 in damages to Hermoso, and another $54,080 jointly paid by Rubiales, Vilda, Luque and Rivera.
If the court were to convict Rubiales and impose the sentencing sought by the prosecutor he would not necessarily have to go to prison. Spain’s criminal code allows judges to “exceptionally” suspend the execution of the sentence if – as in this case – none of the sentences imposed individually exceeds two years.
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BEIJING — Chinese leader Xi Jinping told visiting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Wednesday that attempts to restrict China’s access to technology will not stop the country’s advance.
The Netherlands imposed export licensing requirements in 2023 on the sale of machinery that can make advanced processor chips. The move came after the United States blocked Chinese access to advanced chips and the equipment to make them, citing security concerns, and urged its allies to follow suit.
An online report from state broadcaster CCTV did not mention the chip machinery, but quoted Xi as saying that the creation of scientific and technological barriers and the fragmentation of the industrial and supply chains will lead to division and confrontation.
“The Chinese people also have the right to legitimate development, and no force can stop the pace of China’s scientific and technological development and progress,” Xi said, according to CCTV.
Dutch company ASML is the world’s only producer of machines that use extreme ultraviolet lithography to make advanced semiconductors. In 2023, China became ASML’s second-largest market, accounting for 29% of its revenue as Chinese companies bought up equipment before the licensing requirement took effect.
Rutte, speaking to journalists after his meeting, declined to go into specifics of the talks.
“What I can tell you is that … when we have to take measures, that they are never aimed at one country specifically, that we always try to make sure that the impact is limited, is not impacting the supply chain, and therefore is not impacting the overall economic relationship,” he said.
The Dutch leader, who was accompanied by Trade Minister Geoffrey van Leeuwen on the trip, said the top issue for him in their meetings with Xi and Chinese Premier Li Qiang was the war in Ukraine.
China has taken a neutral position on the war, providing Russia with diplomatic cover and economic support through trade. That stance has angered and frustrated much of Europe, which sees Russia as the aggressor and Ukraine as the victim.
Rutte said it’s important for China to understand that “this is a direct security threat for us, because if Russia will be successful in Ukraine, it will be a threat to the whole of Europe. It will not end with Ukraine.”
He added that he had asked China’s leaders “to put their considerable weight — and they can do that as far as I’m concerned in a very discreet way — but as much as possible on Russia to influence the course of events.”
ASML, the Netherlands’ largest company, recently threatened to leave the country over anti-immigration policies that may impact the company’s ability to hire talent, leaving government officials scrambling to ensure that the firm does not leave.
Van Leeuwen said this week in an interview with The FD, a Dutch business newspaper, that protecting the interests of ASML is a top priority but acknowledged that national security comes before economic interests.
Beijing has repeatedly accused the U.S. of trying to hold back China’s economic development by restricting access to technology. In response, Xi has launched a campaign to develop home-grown chips and other high-tech products.
“China always opposes the U.S. overstretching the concept of national security and making various excuses to coerce other countries into imposing a technological blockade against China,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in January.
Rutte said that NATO and its growing ties with Asia did not come up at Wednesday’s talks. He is a leading candidate to be the next head of the alliance, which China has criticized for provoking regional tensions and making diplomatic forays into the Asia-Pacific region.
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Israel has ordered Palestinian hospital patients back to the Gaza Strip after they’re done with treatment in East Jerusalem medical facilities. As Linda Gradstein reports from East Jerusalem, the order has sparked an outcry from human rights groups, and the Israeli Supreme Court has put their transfer on hold.
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The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could significantly restrict access to the drug mifepristone, which is used in medication abortions. Deana Mitchell has our story.
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Bangkok — Vietnamese automaker VinFast announced Tuesday that it plans to sell its electric vehicles in Thailand and said it had tied up with auto dealers to open showrooms in the country.
VinFast, which only began exporting its EVs last year, faces stiff competition in Thailand from Chinese automakers like BYD. Tesla also recently entered the fray. All were displaying their latest models at the Bangkok International Motor Show.
The Thai EV market is small but growing fast, buoyed by incentives and subsidies from the government. The country of more than 70 million plans to convert 30% of the 2.5 million vehicles it makes annually into EVs by 2030.
VinFast hopes to start selling both its electric scooters and electric SUVs in the country in the next two months, Vu Dang Yen Hang, chief executive officer of VinFast Thailand, told The Associated Press.
Details about pricing and buying the EVs are likely to be announced later this year.
Thailand accounted for 58% of all EV sales in Southeast Asia in 2022, ahead of both Vietnam and Indonesia, according to market research firm Counterpoint Research. But the EV market remains small, accounting for only 0.5% of EV sales worldwide in 2022.
Thailand is trying to change this with incentives to promote manufacturing and sales of EVs, such as reducing import duties and paying subsidies to make them more price competitive.
VinFast has set a target of selling its cars in 50 markets worldwide by the end of 2024.
Initially it’ll rely on existing charging developers in Thailand, but the long-term plan was to work alongside V-Green, a company that builds EV charging stations and is owned by VinFast’s parent company, said Hang.
“We will be working alongside [V-Green] to build infrastructure for our customers in Thailand who are using our cars,” she said.
V-Green was launched this month and plans to spend $404 million in the next two years to build charging stations for VinFast cars in different countries. Like VinFast, it is a part of the sprawling conglomerate Vingroup, which began as an instant noodle company in Ukraine in the 1990s. It is founded and run by Vietnam’s richest man, Pham Nhat Vuong.
VinFast’s foray into Thailand is part of a global expansion that has included exports of EVs to the United States. The company is building an EV factory in North Carolina, where production is slated to begin later in the year. Another factory is under construction in India, and it plans another in Indonesia.
VinFast has begun shipping EVs made in Vietnam to neighboring Laos to supply vehicles for Green SM, an EV taxi operator that is mostly owned by VinFast’s founder, Vuong.
Last year, the company listed its shares in August on Nasdaq, where they initially soared, pushing its market value briefly above those of General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. But investor enthusiasm has cooled, and the company lost more in than $1.4 billion the first three quarters of 2023.
VinFast has struggled to sell its EVs in the U.S., and its early cars have received bad reviews. But the company maintains that if it can succeed in the crowded and competitive American market, it can succeed anywhere.
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washington — Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a record conditional loan of $2.26 billion to tap the largest known lithium reserves in North America. The loan is an important step in an effort by the U.S. government to reduce reliance on China for the metal used to make batteries.
Analysts, however, say that it may be too late to move away from reliance on China completely when it comes to metal processing and the production of batteries.
The DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) says the funds, if approved after review, will help the Lithium Americas Corp. construct a lithium carbonate processing plant at the Thacker Pass mine project in Humboldt County, Nevada.
The LPO says the project would help “secure reliable, sustainable domestic supply chains for critical materials, which are key to reaching our ambitious clean energy and climate goals and reducing our reliance on economic competitors like China.”
Lithium Americas Corp. on its official website says battery materials could be “completely sourced and manufactured in the U.S., bringing down the overall carbon footprint, transport costs and supply chain risks.”
The LPO says lithium carbonate from Thacker Pass could eventually support the production of batteries “for up to 800,000 electric vehicles (EVs) per year, saving 317 million gallons of gasoline per year.”
Although the U.S. has made pioneering and groundbreaking contributions to the development of the lithium ion battery, industry experts say lithium processing and EV battery production is dominated today by China.
“Parts of our key supply chains, including for clean energy, are currently over concentrated in China,” said U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in prepared remarks March 2 when she visited a U.S. lithium processing facility in Chile, which holds the world’s largest reserves of the metal.
“This makes America more vulnerable to shocks in China, or whatever country dominates production, from natural disasters to macroeconomic forces, to deliberate actions such as economic coercion.”
A report last year by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said China increased restrictions on its exports of critical minerals ninefold between 2009 and 2020.
Data from the U.S. Geological Survey shows the output and scale of lithium mines in Australia and Argentina far exceed China’s. In 2022, Australia’s lithium mine output was more than three times China’s.
Refining, processing still issues
But industry experts say while Western countries have poured a lot of investment into developing raw minerals, they have paid little attention to refining and processing, areas in which China dominates.
Ellen R. Wald, a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center, tells VOA, “Lithium is not useful just as it is. You have to refine it to make what’s used in the batteries. And that’s really where China controls the supply chain because almost all of the refining for lithium that creates it into the substance that can be used to make batteries is done in China.”
According to the Chatham House, Chinese companies accounted for about 72% of global lithium refining capacity in 2022.
China also dominates much of the global market for battery-related equipment, leaving limited options for U.S. companies that want to showcase their domestic production credentials.
American Battery Factory Inc., or ABF, is an emerging battery manufacturer that says it is “the first network of entirely U.S.-owned vertical manufacturing, supply chain and R&D for Lithium Iron Phosphate battery cells in the United States.”
But to secure custom automation equipment and machinery for use in its first large-scale rechargeable battery factory in Tucson, Arizona, it has formed a partnership with Lead Intelligent Equipment, a Chinese company.
Dependent on China
In an article in January, Wald said China is in a good position to restrict access to lithium-ion batteries to certain countries or companies as it wishes, and if the U.S. military suddenly finds itself in need of more specialized batteries, the Pentagon may not be able to obtain them.
In February 2022, China announced sanctions against Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the F-35 fighter jet, and Raytheon Technologies, the world’s largest missile manufacturer. Although China did not specify the details of the sanctions, it is generally considered to be a possible threat to cut off the Western countries’ supply of critical minerals.
Wald told VOA, “The U.S. defense industry is basically dependent on China for these specialized batteries that they need in all of their drones and their surveillance systems and all sorts of things.”
David Whittle, adjunct professor in resource engineering at the Department of Civil Engineering at Monash University in Australia, told VOA even if “the world develops a robust, independent supply chain for lithium, up to the point of battery chemical production, at present, China would still be the largest customer for those chemicals, since it is the largest cell manufacturer, the largest battery pack manufacturer, the largest E.V. manufacturer and the largest market for E.V.s.”
The Thacker Pass lithium mine is located at the southern end of the McDermitt Caldera, and is considered to be one of the largest in the world.
The record loan to Lithium Americas Corp. is the largest such loan the U.S. has offered for the development of a lithium mine project since the country stepped up its efforts to build a domestic supply chain for critical minerals in recent years.
The Thacker Pass lithium project is not expected to start production until 2028, and even then, Wald said, that goal may be too ambitious. The mine plans to extract lithium from clay, but Wald says it has never been mined in this way on a commercial scale. In addition, the mine is in a remote and sparsely populated location, requiring the company to build housing for workers and their families and to reassess its environmental impact.
Despite the challenges, Wald said creating a secure supply chain is not impossible for the U.S.
“I don’t think it’s too late,” Wald said. “Will they be able to compete with China globally? Probably not. But can we create non-Chinese sustainable and secure supply chains? Yeah, we can do it.”
Whittle said Western countries being “resilient to challenges from China” can’t mean “isolated from China” anymore, but resilience is still possible.
The DOE’s LPO said while their announcement shows intent to give the loan, the company must first satisfy certain technical, legal, environmental and financial conditions before the funds will be released.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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Washington — Tim Cook, CEO of the American technology giant Apple, is facing criticism at home over laudatory remarks he made about China during a recent visit to try to boost sagging iPhone sales in the lucrative market.
Cook was in Shanghai for the opening of China’s largest Apple retail store on Friday and met with Chinese political and business people. He praised China for being “so vibrant and so dynamic,” in remarks widely quoted by state media and Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying.
The new Apple store took seven years and cost over 80 million yuan (roughly $11.1 million) to build. It is said to be the second largest in the world and the largest in Asia, and it is staffed by about 150 people.
Thursday evening, at least 12 hours before the scheduled opening, a long line had formed in front of the store. Some media said the crowds were “as bustling as New Year’s Eve.”
In addition to showing their loyalty to the brand by purchasing Apple products, the opening day crowds rushed to take photos with Cook, who was in the store at the event.
Dan Ives, a technology analyst on Wall Street, said on X, formerly Twitter, that Cook’s trip to China shows that Apple will continue to attach importance to the Chinese market.
“Apple is actually increasing its investments and retail footprint in China the past year,” he said, “and to this point Cook has been in China since last week on an important visit to lay the groundwork on Apple’s future in China. Cook reaffirming China strategy.”
Chinese media reported on Monday that Apple will cooperate with Chinese technology company Baidu to provide artificial intelligence capabilities to the iPhones sold in China this year. Baidu has not verified the report.
However, not all Chinese love Apple. A viral video clip on Chinese social media shows a middle-aged Chinese woman in yellow clothes, a baseball cap and a mask yelling at the people who queued up at the new Apple store the night before its opening, “You worship and favor foreign things.”
She also said Apple’s business expansion in China is “because of scum like you who are willing to pay for it.”
A person in the line said, “Do you know how many jobs Apple brings to China every year?”
The woman replied, “No need, we have our own Huawei!”
The drama reflects the challenges Apple is facing in China. IPhone shipments in China fell about 33% in February from a year earlier, according to official data, marking a second consecutive month of lower shipments.
In January, the company shipped a total of roughly 5.5 million units, or about 39% fewer handsets than in the prior year, according to China Academy of Information and Communications Technology figures.
Frank Lee, a senior partner of Blue Ocean Capital in Beijing, said that most Chinese iPhone users have a good experience with Apple products, so they remain loyal to the brand. However, there is a clear trend of declining sales of Apple products due to competition with Chinese domestic brands.
Lee told VOA, “I think Apple’s opening of a store in Shanghai will play a certain role in [boosting] its sales in China, but it cannot fundamentally reverse the overall slow decline trend of iPhones in China.”
However, Cook expressed his confidence in the Chinese market. He told the Chinese media, “I love the people and the culture [of China]. Every time I come here, I’m reminded that anything is possible here.”
Cook’s remarks have been criticized as glorifying the Chinese government’s arrogant treatment of private enterprises.
Jonathan Eyal, associate director of the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies in the U.K., wrote on X, “‘Everything is possible’ in China, says Apple’s Tim Cook. Including being arrested and expropriated. And losing the market at a stroke of a bureaucratic pen.”
Theresa Fallon, director at the Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies, wrote, “Apple chief Tim Cook’s obsequious praise for China … unlikely to reverse the tide and CCP mandates that government officials can’t use Apple phones.”
Bloomberg reported last year that a growing number of Chinese government agencies and state-owned enterprises were ordering employees not to bring iPhones and other foreign-brand phones to the workplace. China’s Foreign Ministry did not confirm the report.
Some observers believe Cook’s remarks were not sincere. In recent years, Apple has expanded its production in India. Last year, iPhones made in India appeared for the first time in the first batch of iPhone 15 models released globally.
However, others say China is irreplaceable to the global supply chain. They noted that Apple has faced challenges in efficiency since its supplier Foxconn moved production lines to India in the past couple of years.
Noah Smith, an American current affairs columnist, wrote, “LOLLLLLLL meanwhile he’s shifting production out of China as fast as he can.”
Some critics of Cook are more serious. Sophie Richardson, former China director at Human Rights Watch, said, “.@tim_cook, about those “vibrant” and “dynamic” #crimesagainsthumanity committed by your #China govt hosts…?”
Eli Friedman, associate professor of global labor and work at Cornell University, said the past mutually beneficial relationship between Beijing and American companies is no longer playing a diplomatic role.
He wrote, “Throwing Apple some treats will not help stabilize the U.S.-China relationship, I promise.”
Adrianna Zhang and Joyce Huang contributed to this report.
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JUBA, South Sudan — South Sudan’s government on Tuesday said schools will reopen next week following a two-week closure due to extreme heat across the country.
The health and education ministries said temperatures were expected to steadily drop with the rainy season set to begin in the coming days.
South Sudan in recent years has experienced adverse effects of climate change, with extreme heat, flooding and drought reported during different seasons.
During the heatwave last week, the country registered temperatures up to 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit).
Teachers have been urged to minimize playground activities to early morning or indoors, ventilate classrooms, provide water during school time and monitor children for signs of heat exhaustion and heatstroke.
Health Minister Yolanda Awel Deng singled out Northern Bahr El-Ghazel, Warrap, Unity and Upper Nile states as the most-affected areas.
Higher learning institutions have remained open.
Some schools in rural areas also have continued despite a warning from the education ministry.
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