Traditionally built houses in old Europe are vulnerable to earthquakes, which again was demonstrated last August when a 6.2 magnitude quake devastated an area in central Italy. Italian engineers are researching ways to minimize the damage. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Month: April 2017
Between the U.S. and Mexico: What Migrants Left Behind
An art exhibition in New York highlights undocumented immigrants and the items they left behind while crossing hostile desert territory from Mexico into the United States. The show, called State of Exception, stems from the University of Michigan’s Undocumented Migration Project, and it uses only discarded objects. Celia Mendoza reports on these traces of human migration from the New School’s Parsons School of Design.
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Employers Look to Fill Seasonal Jobs; Advocates Look to Protect Workers
You may have noticed: Much of the recent anti-immigration rhetoric in Washington most loudly comes from factions on the political right: H1B, H2B, it’s all about protecting American jobs.
But every step of the way, progressive groups — while pro-immigrant — are just as critical of foreign worker visas. Federal regulations on the books, they argue, are inherently insufficient to protect visa holders from abuse, whether through unwarranted recruitment fees, misrepresentation of job requirements, fraud or intimidation.
The issue plagues potential recruits, but also well-meaning businesses that can’t find enough Americans willing to take seasonal jobs. In Cape Cod, Massachusetts and other areas of the country whose economic models are centered on five-to-six-month tourist seasons, the work of H2B visa-holders becomes essential to business owners.
Employers worry, too
Tyler Hayes, vice president of Cape Cod Restaurants, says he is fortunate that his seasonal foreign workforce, mainly from Jamaica, has created a “family atmosphere” during his 20-year tenure with the company.
“Now, their children are coming in, working for us,” Hayes said.
But while Hayes can only point to the well-being of his own workforce, he acknowledges that at least in recent years, abuse of workers has not been inconceivable.
“There used to be these companies that would send out these big petitions,” Hayes recalled. “They bring in 100 or 200 people, get them in the country and then farm them out.”
In response, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cracked down on abuse within the H2B system in 2015, both in order to prevent the exploitation of workers and to ensure U.S. workers’ awareness of available jobs.
Are regulations enough?
Elizabeth Mauldin, policy director at Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Inc. (CDM) — the Center for Migrant Rights — calls those protections basic, including the right to receive a contract before entering the U.S. and protection from being charged a recruitment fee.
But many aspects of those existing regulations, she argues, are difficult to ensure, absent greater transparency in the recruitment process.
“It’s impossible to enforce a ban on charging workers fees,” Mauldin told VOA. “When workers are charged fees upfront, they are vulnerable to the same type of economic coercion across the board.” As a result, she notes, foreign workers become susceptible to wage theft and other abuses, regardless of their visa category.
Afraid to report
A 2013 report issued by CDM, whose findings were based on a survey and in-depth interviews with hundreds of H2B workers, found that 58 percent of respondents reported paying illegal recruitment fees, while 10 percent reported recruitment fraud — having paid a fee for a nonexistent job.
While there are mechanisms in place for foreign workers to report abuse, Mauldin argues that the disincentives are often too great.
“[Abusive employers] will say, at the end of the season, ‘If you pay those fees, then we will be more likely to recruit you in the future,’ or ‘If you don’t report these violations, then our recruiter will choose you again next year,’” Mauldin said.
Jane Nichols Bishop, founder and president of Peak Season Workforce, a family-run company that helps Cape Cod-area businesses secure H2B visas, says the mechanisms in place to prevent exploitation, including audits by the Department of Labor, have largely worked. But in cases where they do not, she says it’s in everyone’s interest that the infractions are reported.
“If there are abuses, we would like to see them caught,” Nichols said. “They give everyone who does this and who works at this very successfully a very bad name.”
Workers empower themselves
Despite ongoing reports of abuse nationwide, there is some hope for affected foreigners outside of federal regulations, thanks to the internet. A bilingual workers’ rights initiative, which Mauldin calls the Yelp for migrant workers, allows workers to review recruiters and share their experiences, and create a self-empowering community in the process.
your ads here!New Kabul Coffee Shop Aims for Success in Tea-dominated Afghanistan
Steeped in centuries of seemingly impenetrable tea tradition, Afghanistan’s capital is getting a little coffee buzz.
Nargis Aziz Shahi says business has been increasing day by day since she opened iCafe a couple of weeks ago. Looking a little like a brick-walled Starbucks with a distinctively homey Afghan feel, it’s attracting a mostly youthful clientele drawn by free internet service and books to peruse over a cup or two.
“There were three key objectives that led me open the cafe: 1) to introduce coffee to Afghans who mostly don’t know coffee and its taste and benefits; 2) to provide a place for our youth to carry out social activities; and 3) to provide job opportunities for young people,” Shahi told VOA’s Afghan service.
Tea came to Afghanistan early
Afghanistan was introduced to tea early because of its location on ancient trade routes. The Chinese traded silk and tea for other commodities. Tea became part of the country’s hospitality for guests. Just about every family has its own recipe.
Today, Afghanistan is the world’s largest tea consumer, with each person consuming an average of almost 4.5 kilograms — more than 1,500 cups — per year in 2012. By comparison, the U.S. ranked 72nd at 0.4 kilograms per person.
Only the Russian Federation and Britain, with much larger populations, import more tea.
Coffee culture gets a start
Dr. Nabi Misdaq, adviser to President Ashraf Ghani, has visited iCafe. He regards coffee drinking as a new, enlightening culture in Afghanistan.
“It is a good beginning,” Misdaq said. “It is a profitable business, because many young people come here to read books and exchange ideas. I am sure that this will also lead to the opening of new shops.”
The cafe also serves as a place for young Afghans to carry out social and cultural activities. They come to iCafe to attend literary programs and poetry contests.
The female customers say there are few other places where they can get together and entertain themselves, but they maintain that they come to the shop to relax and enjoy.
“I am very happy that we have a coffee shop in Kabul,” said customer Samira Seerat. “It is a very good place for women to visit. There are in fact no appropriate places for women in Kabul, and Afghanistan as a whole, to visit, because our people believe that women cannot go to restaurants.”
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New Kabul Coffee Shop Stirs Interest in Tea-Dominated Afghanistan
Steeped in centuries of traditional tea drinking, Afghanistan is getting a little coffee buzz for a change. Hikmat Sorosh has more on this popular new trend from the Afghan capital, Kabul, in this story narrated by Michael Lipin, with additional reporting by Khalil Noorzaie in Herat.
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Environment, Politics and ‘The Godfather’ on Tribeca Film Fest Menu
After a turbulent U.S. presidential election and a rollercoaster start to President Donald Trump’s administration, this year’s Tribeca film festival will come with a statement.
Environmental, political and social issues all feature strongly in the 200-strong selection of feature films, documentaries, television shows and immersive installations on offer during the April 19-30 festival.
Co-founder Jane Rosenthal said choices for the 16th festival included themes of the environment “and the fact we are an open society and everyone is welcome here.”
“Artists can express things sometimes that no politician can,” Rosenthal told Reuters Television.
Films about food waste, the protests over the Dakota Access Pipeline and the endangered white rhino are among a dozen projects linked to Earth Day, which falls in the middle of the festival on April 22.
A retrospective documentary about Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez, who was at the center of a 2000 custody and immigration battle; a documentary on maverick political operative Roger Stone; and “Copwatch,” about the U.S. citizens who film police activity and arrests, are just some of the offerings tackling social and political issues.
On a lighter note, the festival will open next Wednesday with a documentary about record producer Clive Davis – the man behind the success of singers like Whitney Houston, Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Hudson.
The closing weekend sees a 45th anniversary reunion and screening of the cast and director of Oscar-winning Mafia movie “The Godfather” and its 1974 sequel “The Godfather: Part II.”
Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall are all expected to join a conversation after the April 29 screenings.
The Tribeca film festival was founded in 2002 by De Niro and Rosenthal to revitalize lower Manhattan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
your ads here!Will Robots Replace Human Drivers, Doctors and Other Workers?
The impact of automation on U.S. jobs is open to debate. Robots have displaced millions of manufacturing workers, and automation is getting cheaper and more common, raising concerns it will eventually supplant far more workers in the services sector of the economy, which includes everything from truck driving to banking.
University of Virginia Darden School of Business Professor Ed Hess says we are just starting to see automation’s impact. “It is going to be broad and it is going to be deep,” he said, adding that “tens of millions” of jobs could be at risk.
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show 5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs have disappeared already.
While some politicians blame trade for the job losses, most economists say automation is mainly to blame as robots do routine factory tasks previously done by humans.
Hess calls self-driving cars and trucks a threat to millions of human jobs, and says fast-food workers are also vulnerable, as companies install electronic kiosks to take restaurant orders. McDonalds says displaced workers will be reassigned to other tasks.
The professor says research shows nearly half of U.S. jobs could be automated, including retail store clerks, doctors who scan X-rays for disease, administrative workers, legal staffers, and middle managers.
Future of jobs
Starting more than a century ago, advancing technology changed the United States from an agrarian to a manufacturing economy. Displaced farm hands eventually found factory work, but the transition took years. This new transition may also take a time because, Hess says, “We’re not going to anywhere produce the number of jobs that we automate.”
But 50 years of experience in banking shows that while automation may change the industry, it does not necessarily end jobs for humans.
The first Automatic Teller Machines, or ATMs, were installed 50 years ago, and there are now 420,000 in the United States. International Monetary Fund analysis shows the number of human tellers did not drop, but rose slightly.
“Humans were doing mostly service and routine types of tasks that could be converted into more automated tasks,” Tremont Capital Group’s Sam Ditzion said. But “the humans then became far more valuable in customer service and in sales in these branches.”
In a Skype interview, Ditzion said that while automation can be “scary,” the oversight of ATMs created new kinds of work for “tens of thousands of people.”
Automation grows
A report by Redwood Software and the Center for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) says surging investment and falling prices will help robotics grow.
Redwood’s software handles business processes that are repetitive, rule-bound and tedious.
CEBR Economist David Whitaker says as growing fleets of robots take over mundane tasks, higher productivity could bring higher wages for some human workers. He says people who want to stay employed must hone skills that robots can’t handle, such as unpredictable work or the need for an emotional human connection.
One example, according to Alex Bentley of Blue Prism software, is a program that helps law firms examine visa applications. The robot enters data but gets help from a human partner with problems such as missing information. Bentley says some human jobs have been lost, but in other cases displaced workers move within the firm to new work, particularly jobs that are “customer-centric.”
U.S. Senator Chris Coons says Germany and other nations use training programs to help their citizens get and keep jobs in a changing economy. The Democrat says America’s competitors invest six times what the U.S. does in skills development and workforce training, while Washington has slashed funding for such programs. Coons and a Republican colleague, Senator Thom Tillis, are seeking more help for schools, companies, workers and government agencies operating programs to upgrade the workforce.
New opportunities
While workers need to make some changes, philosopher and professor Ed Freeman of UVA’s Darden School of Business says companies also need to rethink their basic purpose. He says businesses must do more than just maximize value for shareholders.
“I need red blood cells to live,” he said. “It doesn’t follow that the purpose of my life is to make red blood cells. Companies need profits to live, it doesn’t follow that the purpose of a company is to make profits. We have to think through this idea about what purpose is in business.”
Freeman says he is “optimistic” because many jobs, such as creating applications for smartphones that would have been unimaginable a few years ago, are creating thousands of opportunities. He is also encouraged by his many students who, he says, bring new ideas, passion and energy to the task of starting businesses that will create new kinds of jobs.
Freeman is convinced that the problem isn’t the tsunami of lost jobs, it is the lack of “really good ideas” for creating a safety net for people who will lose jobs to automation.
Many experts worry about growing levels of automation — particularly advanced forms known as artificial intelligence — hurting employment for U.S. workers.
But U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says it will be “50 or 100 years” before artificial intelligence takes American jobs. In an interview with Mike Allen of AXIOS, Mnuchin said, “I think we are so far away from that, [it is] not even on my radar screen.”
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Fruit Flies Help Unlock Genetic Secrets of Parkinson’s
Researchers in Britain have shown that genetic manipulation can prevent or slow the symptoms of Parkinson’s, in the inherited form of the disease. That’s a minority of Parkinson’s patients, but the researchers are learning more about what causes nerve cells in the brain to die. Faith Lapidus reports.
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From Wi-Fi to Li-Fi
Wi-Fi is very simply a way to send information via short-range radio. That can be a problem, though, when a lot of people are using the same open network at the same time. But a relatively new technology using light bulbs could help relieve that overwhelmed Wi-Fi network. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Lady Gaga Will Make History as Female Headliner at Coachella
Lady Gaga will make history when she performs at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival this weekend, marking a decade since a solo woman has been billed as a headliner on the prestigious musical stage.
Beyonce had been slated to headline the festival in Indio, California, but backed out because she’s pregnant with twins. Bjork was the last solo female to headline Coachella in 2007, so it begs the question: Why has it taken so long?
Women have always performed at Coachella, which began Friday, since it was launched in 1999. In the last few years the number of female performers has grown, including acts that blend alternative and pop, such as Sia and Tegan & Sara, to mega genre-mashers like M.I.A., Janelle Monae and Santigold.
Coachella is known as the festival for cool kids — and musicians. That leaves little to no room for acts that dominate Top 40 radio, where women have a strong presence, from Katy Perry to Rihanna.
Halsey, the Grammy-nominated singer who is readying her second alternative album and had one of last year’s biggest pop hits with “Closer” alongside the Chainsmokers, performed at Coachella last year. The 22-year-old said women who perform alternative music are often billed as pop artists because of their sex.
“Festivals like Coachella, they pride themselves on being part of the counterculture, being tastemakers, upholding themselves to a certain standard of the artists that they include, and I think one of the problems is that female artists are so often tainted as pop artists even when they don’t necessarily intend to be,” Halsey said. “Female artists can put out the same style of a record as a male artist and when a male artist does it, it has a certain type of dignity, it has a certain type of edge … as soon as a woman puts out a record of the same caliber, it’s immediately filed as a pop record no matter what.”
Halsey said it’s something she’s experienced in her own career with the success of “Closer.”
“It was this giant pop record and immediately I was a pop artist even though I put out an alternative album, I played alternative festivals and I was on alternative radio,” she said. “As soon as [you] do one pop record it’s like the kiss of death for a female artist sometimes.”
Gary Bongiovanni, CEO of concert trade publication Pollstar, said he didn’t think the gap between male and female headliners at Coachella was calculated.
“I don’t see that there’s any sexism. There’s nothing more than trying to put together a bill of artists that the public wants to see. And we live in a world where a significant majority of the acts are either male or male-fronted bands versus females or female-fronted bands,” he said. “If you look at the level of business all of those artists do and you try to cobble together a lineup that’s going to be appealing, it’s difficult, and there are a lot of the female acts that may not lend themselves to performing in front of 60,000 or 80,000 people in an open field, versus headlining an area or more likely a theater.”
In last year’s Pollstar chart of the 100 top-grossing North America tours, women made up about 15 percent of the list, which was dominated by male acts and male-fronted bands. Only two women cracked the Top 10: Beyonce was No.1 and Adele came in fifth.
Coachella is sold out before the lineup is announced, so the festival has the luxury of picking performers instead of relying on acts to help sell tickets.
Along with Gaga, this year’s headliners include Radiohead and Kendrick Lamar, who released his hotly anticipated new album Friday. Some of the female performers include Lorde, Banks, Tove Lo, Kehlani, Nao, Kiiara and Bishop Briggs. Yukimi Nagano, who fronts Swedish band Little Dragon, is returning to Coachella for a third time.
Nagano said she was surprised that it’s been 10 years since a woman headlined the festival, adding: “I think it’s a really positive thing.”
Jason White, executive vice president of marketing at Beats by Dre, said the company is purposely, and exclusively, giving attention to women at the festival: Their space at Coachella will only feature female performers, including Erykah Badu, DJ Kiss, Ana Calderon, JCK DVY and Jasmine Solano.
“I think it really meshes incredibly well with what’s going on with Coachella because you do have Gaga, we’re excited about seeing Kehlani [and] there’s some really solid performers this year,” he said.
Halsey, who spoke over the phone Thursday as she drove to the desert to watch Coachella as a fan, said she was thrilled to see Gaga take the stage. She said the recent Super Bowl halftime performer is one of those pioneering female acts that haven’t been boxed into a genre, though she knows “the extremes [Gaga] has to go to maintain that counterculture are much greater than that of what a male artist has to do.”
“Drake is still considered a rap/rhythm artist even though he is essentially a pop artist when you look at the decisions that he makes and the climate that kind of surrounds his projects,” Halsey said.
“And when you have a female artist in the same lane, they get written off as a pop artist simply because they’re female, simply because the conversation with them, it goes to fashion, makeup or whatever, and those are questions and comments that don’t surround the brand and surround the career of a male artist.”
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Julian Lennon Honors Mom, the Environment in Children’s Book
Julian Lennon is looking to nurture a new generation’s commitment to the environment, with a little help from a white feather.
The firstborn son of the late John Lennon has co-authored “Touch the Earth,” a picture book for kids as young as 3 about the world’s water problems, from polluted oceans to the need for clean drinking water in the developing world.
Out later this month, the book from Sky Pony Press has a group of kids loaded into a plane called the White Feather Flier as they span the globe and learn about the need for filtration, irrigation and ocean life protection. With illustrations created both by hand and computer, it’s the first of three children’s books he plans, in line with the environmental and humanitarian work of his White Feather Foundation.
“We’ve failed miserably in looking after our environment. I think this is a great way to approach children into realizing what’s at stake, and to help educate and help them make decisions about the right things to do for the future,” Lennon said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “It’s for those with inquiring minds who are asking why?”
Lennon has taken on environmental issues in song, including his 1991 “Saltwater,” and in film, including the 2006 documentary “Whaledreamers,” covering a gathering of indigenous and tribal leaders that explores connections among whales, dolphins and humanity.
Appealing to the next generation of prospective eco-warriors grew out of his friendship with co-writer Bart Davis after the two put aside plans — for now — for the 54-year-old Lennon to write a biography. But he hasn’t completely abandoned the idea.
“I feel time’s marching on, you know. A lot of my friends and people I know are popping their clogs,” Lennon laughed. “You know, who knows what’s next. It’s in the cards in the next few years, absolutely, before it’s too late.”
So what’s up with the white feather for Lennon, the former Beatle’s son with his first wife, Cynthia? He shares the story at the back of the book.
“On the odd occasion when I saw dad he mentioned once that should he ever pass, a way he would let me know that he was OK, or that we were all going to be OK, would be in the form of a white feather,” Lennon explained. “I thought that quite peculiar. I told mum about it, too, and we just sort of went on with life.”
Later, while on tour in Australia, he was presented with a white swan feather by an aboriginal tribal elder of the Mirning people.
“It was a freaky moment, but one I took to heart immediately,” he said. “I realized that this was about stepping up to the plate now and, you know, I can sing all I want about this stuff but am I actually going to do something about it? So I spent 10 years making a documentary about the Mirning people.”
It’s also when he established his foundation, visiting Ethiopia with the head of a clean water initiative and touring schools and health clinics in Kenya. A portion of the books’ proceeds will go the foundation, which now does a range of work, including providing scholarships for girls in Kenya.
Lennon’s father was shot to death in 1980. His mother died two years ago of cancer at age 75. Her loss remains tender. Lennon dedicates the book to Cynthia, and he established the Kenya scholarships in her name.
“I talk to her every night, pretty much,” Lennon said. “She has given me the strength to carry on. Where I’m at at the moment, I feel very strong, very zenlike. I just want to do the right thing. To try to continue to be the best that I can be. That was all based around wanting to make her proud. I try to continue all the work that I do in her name.”
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Hackers Release Files Indicating NSA Monitored Global Bank Transfers
Hackers released documents and files Friday that cybersecurity experts said indicated the U.S. National Security Agency had accessed the SWIFT interbank messaging system, allowing it to monitor money flows among some Middle Eastern and Latin American banks.
The release included computer code that could be adapted by criminals to break into SWIFT servers and monitor messaging activity, said Shane Shook, a cyber security consultant who has helped banks investigate breaches of their SWIFT systems.
The documents and files were released by a group calling themselves The Shadow Brokers. Some of the records bear NSA seals, but Reuters could not confirm their authenticity.
The NSA could not immediately be reached for comment.
Holes in Windows
Also published were many programs for attacking various versions of the Windows operating system, at least some of which still work, researchers said.
In a statement to Reuters, Microsoft, maker of Windows, said it had not been warned by any part of the U.S. government that such files existed or had been stolen.
“Other than reporters, no individual or organization has contacted us in relation to the materials released by Shadow Brokers,” the company said.
The absence of warning is significant because the NSA knew for months about the Shadow Brokers breach, officials previously told Reuters. Under a White House process established by former President Barack Obama’s staff, companies were usually warned about dangerous flaws.
Bangladesh heist
Shook said criminal hackers could use the information released Friday to hack into banks and steal money in operations mimicking a heist last year of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank.
“The release of these capabilities could enable fraud like we saw at Bangladesh Bank,” Shook said.
The SWIFT messaging system is used by banks to transfer trillions of dollars each day. Belgium-based SWIFT downplayed the risk of attacks employing the code released by hackers Friday.
SWIFT said it regularly releases security updates and instructs client banks on how to handle known threats.
“We mandate that all customers apply the security updates within specified times,” SWIFT said in a statement.
SWIFT said it had no evidence that the main SWIFT network had ever been accessed without authorization.
It was possible that the local messaging systems of some SWIFT client banks had been breached, SWIFT said in a statement, which did not specifically mention the NSA.
When cyberthieves robbed the Bangladesh Bank last year, they compromised that bank’s local SWIFT network to order money transfers from its account at the New York Federal Reserve.
NSA and SWIFT
The documents released by the Shadow Brokers on Friday indicate that the NSA may have accessed the SWIFT network through service bureaus. SWIFT service bureaus are companies that provide an access point to the SWIFT system for the network’s smaller clients and may send or receive messages regarding money transfers on their behalf.
“If you hack the service bureau, it means that you also have access to all of their clients, all of the banks,” said Matt Suiche, founder of the United Arab Emirates-based cybersecurity firm Comae Technologies, who has studied the Shadow Broker releases and believes the group has access to NSA files.
The documents posted by the Shadow Brokers include Excel files listing computers on a service bureau network, user names, passwords and other data, Suiche said.
“That’s information you can only get if you compromise the system,” he said.
Cris Thomas, a prominent security researcher with the cybersecurity firm Tenable, said the documents and files released by the Shadow Brokers show “the NSA has been able to compromise SWIFT banking systems, presumably as a way to monitor, if not disrupt, financial transactions to terrorists groups.”
Thwarting terrorists
Since the early 1990s, interrupting the flow of money from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere to al-Qaida, the Taliban, and other militant Islamic groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries has been a major objective of U.S. and allied intelligence agencies.
Mustafa Al-Bassam, a computer science researcher at University College London, said on Twitter that the Shadow Brokers documents show that the “NSA hacked a bunch of banks, oil and investment companies in Palestine, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Yemen, more.”
He added that NSA “completely hacked” EastNets, one of two SWIFT service bureaus named in the documents that were released by the Shadow Brokers.
Reuters could not independently confirm that EastNets had been hacked. And EastNets, based in Dubai, denied it had been hacked in a statement, calling the assertion “totally false and unfounded.”
EastNets ran a “complete check of its servers and found no hacker compromise or any vulnerabilities,” according to a statement from EastNets’ chief executive and founder, Hazem Mulhim.
Snowden documents
In 2013, documents released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden said the NSA had been able to monitor SWIFT messages.
The agency monitored the system to spot payments intended to finance crimes, according to the documents released by Snowden.
Reuters could not confirm whether the documents released Friday by the Shadow Brokers, if authentic, were related to NSA monitoring of SWIFT transfers since 2013.
Some of the documents released by the Shadow Brokers were dated 2013, but others were not dated. The documents released by the hackers did not clearly indicate whether the NSA had actually used all the techniques cited for monitoring SWIFT messages.
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Russia Boycotts Kyiv-hosted Eurovision Event Over Contestant Kerfuffle
Russia’s leading state broadcaster has announced plans to boycott the Eurovision 2017 song contest after the host country, Ukraine, barred Russia’s contestant, wheelchair-bound singer Yulia Samoylova, from entering the country.
Kyiv’s decision in late March to ban the 28-year-old Russian paraplegic vocalist stemmed from her June 2015 performance in Crimea, where she appeared without the approval of Ukrainian authorities after Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula.
Announcing the boycott Friday, Channel One, the state broadcaster that transmits the competition to large Russian audiences, said event organizers had offered the option of sending a different contestant or having Samoylova perform via video link from Moscow.
“In our view this represents discrimination against the Russian entry, and of course our team will not under any circumstances agree to such terms,” said Yuri Aksyuta, the station’s chief producer for musical and entertainment programs.
The contest organizers also condemned the Ukrainian decision but said the event will go ahead.
In March, a Ukrainian security services official told VOA that the ban on Samoylova was “based solely on the norms of Ukrainian law and national security interests.”
The Kremlin called it political pettiness.
“Practically everyone has been to Crimea; there are hardly any people who haven’t been to Crimea,” said Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Peskov also challenged criticism that Samoylova’s nomination was a deliberately provocative act by Kremlin officials — an attempt to make Kyiv appear cruel for restricting participation of a disabled artist.
“We don’t see anything provocative in this,” Peskov said, explaining that Channel One producers had nominated Samoylova independently.
Despite the high-blown kerfuffle, Ukrainian political analyst Mikhail Bassarab told VOA that Ukraine’s law can’t allow for exceptions.
“On the basis of Ukraine and international law, the Russian contestant violated the law,” he told VOA’s Russian service. “Naturally, anybody, including this particular Russian citizen, should be barred entry into Ukraine. There is nothing personal in this position. We can’t make exceptions … [just because] they were nominated for an international contest or have a disability.”
Politics or entertainment?
Ukrainian political analyst Yaroslav Makitra says Kyiv’s ban touches on a broader range of questions.
“It’s critical to decide what matters to us more, politics or entertainment,” he said. “If it’s politics, then we should have said ‘no’ to hosting Eurovision. … But if we want to promote the Ukraine across the globe, then we need to seek legislative and legal opportunities that would allow the Russian contestants to come to Ukraine.”
Otherwise, he said, Kyiv risks turning Eurovision into a competition of political finger-pointing.
Samoylova, a 2013 runner-up in the Russian version of The X Factor, who also performed at the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Paralympics, says that if she were permitted to perform, political tensions would be far from her mind.
“I’m simply not thinking about that. It is all out of the mix and it’s not very important,” she said. “I sing and my goal is to sing well, to represent Russia and not to embarrass myself.”
Frank Dieter Freiling, chairman of Eurovision’s steering committee, issued a statement Friday condemning Kyiv’s decision to ban Samoylova on the ground that it violates Eurovision’s ethos as a nonpolitical event.
“However, preparations continue apace for the Eurovision Song Contest in the host city, Kyiv. Our top priority remains to produce a spectacular Eurovision Song Contest.”
Dima Bilan was the last Russian to win Eurovision in 2008. The 62nd international song contest will be held in May in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.
Svetlana Cunningham translated from Russian. This report was produced in collaboration with VOA’s Russian service. Some information is from Reuters.
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The iPhone of Cars? Apple Enters Self-driving Car Race
Apple is joining the fiercely competitive race to design self-driving cars, raising the possibility that a company that has already re-shaped culture with its iPhone may try to transform transportation, too.
Ending years of speculation, Apple’s late entry into a crowded field was made official Friday with the disclosure that the California Department of Motor Vehicles had awarded a permit for the company to start testing its self-driving car technology on public roads in the state.
The permit covers three vehicles — all 2015 Lexus RX 450h hybrid SUVs — and six individual drivers. California law requires people to be in a self-driving car who can take control if something goes wrong.
Apple Goes Mobile … In a New Way
Apple confirmed its arrival in the self-driving car market, but wouldn’t discuss its intentions. Its interest in autonomous vehicle technology, however, has long been clear .
The Cupertino, California, company pointed to a statement that it issued in December. “Apple is investing heavily in machine learning and autonomous systems,” the company said then. “There are many potential applications for these technologies, including the future of transportation.”
Apple released that statement after Steve Kenner, a former Ford Motor executive who is now Apple’s director of product integrity, notified federal regulators of the company’s interest in self-driving cars in a letter.
Like others, Apple believes self-driving cars could ease congestion and save millions of people who die annually in traffic accidents often caused by drunk or distracted motorists.
Self-driving cars could also be a lucrative new market. And Apple has been searching for its next act for a while, one that will take it beyond its mainstay phones, tablets and personal computers.
A Next Big Thing
Although iPhone’s ongoing popularity has helped Apple remain the world’s most valuable company, the company hasn’t had a breakthrough product since the 2010 debut of the iPad, currently in the throes of a three-year sales slump. The dry spell has raised doubts as to whether Apple lost some of its trend-setting magic with the death of co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011.
Apple will be vying against 29 other companies that already have California permits to test self-driving cars. The list includes major automakers, including Ford, General Motors, BMW, Volkswagen and Tesla, as well as one of its biggest rivals in technology, Google, whose testing of self-driving cars has been spun off into an affiliate called Waymo.
Since Google began its work on self-driving vehicles eight years ago, Waymo’s fleet of self-driving cars has logged more than 2 million miles on the road.
That means Apple has a long way to catch up in self-driving technology. But it has often been a follower in markets that it eventually revolutionized. It wasn’t the first to introduce a digital music player, smartphone, or tablet before its iPod, iPhone and iPad came out.
Deep Pockets
With $246 billion in cash, Apple also could easily afford to buy technology that accelerates its development of self-driving cars. There has been recurring speculation that Apple might eventually acquire Tesla, which has a market value of about $50 billion. Neither Apple nor Tesla has given any inkling that they’re interested in joining forces, though.
Speculation about Apple’s interest in expanding into automobiles began swirling in 2015 amid media reports that the company had begun secretly working on building its own electric car under the name project “Titan.” Apple never confirmed the existence of Titan, which is now believed to be dead.
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‘The Promise’ Brings Tragedy of 1915 Armenian Massacre to Big Screen
Celebrities of Armenian descent including Cher and the Kardashians lent their support this week to “The Promise,” a period drama centered around the massacre of Christian Armenians during World War I in what is now Turkey.
“The Promise,” out in U.S. theaters on April 21, stars Oscar Isaac as an Armenian medical student and Christian Bale as an American foreign correspondent, both of whom fall in love with the same woman.
Their love triangle unfolds as the Ottoman Empire’s entry into the war is followed by the 1915 massacre of Christian Armenians.
“So many people, when confronted with a period film, they tend to ask that question ‘why is this still relevant?'” Bale told Reuters at Wednesday’s red carpet premiere in Los Angeles.
“You only have to look at the news to see sadly how relevant this story still is,” he added.
Terry George, who directed 2004 Oscar-nominated historical drama “Hotel Rwanda,” said shooting “The Promise” coincided with news of Yazidi refugees besieged by Islamic militants in northern Iraq and the mass exodus of Syrians attempting to flee the war-torn country for Europe.
“As we were shooting, we were watching the same events in the same location – people under siege in the mountains and drowning in the Mediterranean,” George said.
The nature and scale of the massacre of Christian Armenians remains a contentious issue.
Turkey accepts that many Armenians died in partisan fighting beginning in 1915, but denies that up to 1.5 million were killed and that this constituted an act of genocide, a term used by many Western historians and foreign parliaments.
Singer Cher, whose father was Armenian-American, joined reality TV stars Kim and Kourtney Kardashian at the premiere.
“There is something about people when they don’t see other people as human beings, then they objectify and then they can do anything to them,” Cher said about the massacre.
“Westworld” actress Angela Sarafyan, who plays Isaac’s wife in the film and is of Armenian descent, described the role as very personal.
“My great-great-grandparents fled to Syria, Aleppo to survive and to start a family and today, people from Syria, Aleppo leave to other places so they can live,” she said.
“One hundred years have gone by and that is still happening,” she added.
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Rian Johnson Debuts Teaser Trailer for ‘The Last Jedi’
Is the Force still strong with Luke Skywalker?
The first trailer for “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” dropped on Friday, showcasing a morose and withdrawn Skywalker. The two-minute teaser , unveiled by director Rian Johnson at the “Star Wars Celebration” fan event in Orlando, Florida, offered few clues to the film. But it notably includes Mark Hamill’s iconic hero gravely intoning, “It’s time for the Jedi to end,” from a dark cave.
The trailer whetted the appetites of ravenous “Star Wars” fans who turned out in droves in Orlando and online, where the event was streamed live. Actor Josh Gad, a Disney star from another universe (“Frozen,” “Beauty and the Beast”), hosted a panel including Johnson, producer Kathleen Kennedy and cast members Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and a new addition, Kelly Marie Tran.
“The Last Jedi” picks off where “The Force Awakens” left off, with Rey (Ridley) meeting Luke on a remote island, filmed off the coast of Ireland. Some shots in the trailer also suggested Skywalker training Rey on the island. In “The Force Awakens,” Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren has turned to the dark side after being tutored by Luke.
The presentation was mostly a game of teasing hints about the film while revealing very little about it.
“I actually can tell you some things. A small amount,” said Ridley, laughing. She said the film will go “deep” into Rey’s story and reveal how it can be difficult meeting your heroes — presumably alluding to a cranky Skywalker. “They may not be what you expect,” said Ridley to knowing groans in the crowd.
“The Force Awakens” director and “Last Jedi” producer J.J. Abrams has previously hailed Hamill’s performance in the film, suggesting it could land him an Oscar nomination. Hamill, the most raucously received star on Friday, said he drew on his own experiences for this new chapter in Luke’s life.
“I said: I have to relate to things that are real in my own life to understand where Luke is at this point in his life,” Hamill said.
“The Last Jedi” is due in theaters Dec. 15.
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Meet the Rival to the ‘Mother of All Bombs’
The so-called “Mother of All Bombs,” may be the biggest conventional weapon in the U.S. arsenal, but it’s not the biggest non-nuclear bomb in the world.
That title goes to Russia’s “Father of All Bombs,” which is reportedly four times heavier than the 10,300-kilogram Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), the official name of the U.S. GBU-43/B.
FOAB is also quite a different kind of bomb. While the MOAB is conventional, the FOAB is thermobaric, meaning it uses oxygen in the atmosphere to increase the damaging effects.
According to Business Insider, the FOAB explodes in midair with a “fuel-air mixture” that, according to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, creates an intense “pressure wave” as well as a vacuum that “ruptures the lungs.”
Even if the fuel does not ignite, it’s highly toxic and likely deadly to anyone coming into contact with it, the DIA wrote.
The blast radius of the FOAB is around 300 meters, with an explosion equivalent to 44 tons of TNT, Reuters reported.
On Thursday, the U.S. military used its MOAB for the first time on the battlefield, dropping it on tunnels in Afghanistan that were reportedly used by Islamic State terrorists.
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Ugandan Inventors Invent Better Way to Diagnose Pneumonia
Three university engineering graduates in Uganda are taking on one of the leading killers of young children in Africa – pneumonia. They say the prototype of their invention, a “smart jacket” they have named Mama’s Hope, can diagnose the illness faster and more accurately than the current medical protocol.
Four-month-old Nakato Christine writhes on a hospital bed, breathing fast. On the other end of the bed is her twin sister, in the same condition.
Nakato coughs as Senior Nurse Kyebatala Loy adjusts the nasal gastric tube.
“They have been put on oxygen because they have difficulty in breathing and the feeding is also difficult because of their fast breathing,” Kyebatala said.
Since January, 352 babies have been admitted with pneumonia to pediatric ward 16 at Mulago National Referral Hospital in Kampala.
Pneumonia is the leading infectious cause of death for children under five years of age in Africa and south Asia, according to the World Health Organization. In 2015, pneumonia killed nearly a million children worldwide.
A key problem is the challenge involved in diagnosing the disease. The sooner the sick children start receiving antibiotics, the better their chance of survival. But health workers armed with stethoscopes and thermometers can miss the infection in its early stage. Dr. Flavia Mpanga of the U.N. Children’s Fund in Kampala says other methods, like the respiratory timer, can lead to misdiagnosis.
“If you see the respiratory timer, it’s got a ticking mechanism that confuses the community health workers. When they are taking the breathe rates, they confuse the ticking sound of the respiratory timer with the breathe rates and every child is almost diagnosed with pneumonia,” said Dr. Mpanga.
She says over-diagnosis means some children are taking antibiotics they don’t need, which is also a public health problem.
A trio of recent university engineering graduates in Uganda think they have an answer. They have been working with the Mulago School of Public Health to test a prototype of their invention, the smart jacket, called Mama’s Hope.
Two of the inventors, 26-year-old Beseufekad Shifferaw and 25-year-old Brian Turyabagye, gave VOA a demonstration.
“Ahh so…[zipper sound]… the jacket…is placed on the child…first, this goes around the child and then the falcon fastening is placed, and then the flaps are placed…[fade out]”
“This jacket will simply measure the vital signs of pneumonia. That is the breathing rate, the state of the lungs and the temperature,” said Turyabagye. “Now those signs are transmitted to our unit here, through which a health worker can read off the readings, which include cough, chest pains, nausea or difficulty in breathing. With those additional signs and symptoms, they are coupled with the result that has been measured by the jacket and it gives a more accurate diagnosis result.”
For now, it is just a prototype. But the inventors say their tests have shown that the smart jacket can diagnose pneumonia three times faster than traditional exams.
UNICEF has put the team in touch with its office in Copenhagen in charge of innovations to help them advance in the pre-trial stage. Dr. Mpanga sees potential.
“My only hope is that this jacket can reach a commercial value and be regulatory-body approved so that it can help the whole world,” said Dr. Mpanga.
Dr. Mpanga says taking the guess work out of pneumonia diagnosis could save countless lives in the developing world.
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Seasonal Businesses Scramble to Stay Afloat Without Foreign Workers
Along northeastern Cape Cod off the coast of Massachusetts, April doesn’t usually equate with sunshine and sandcastles. The month is mostly a time of waiting for the fog and chill to lift off the Atlantic Ocean and the tourists to arrive.
But this year is a problem for seasonal businesses, whose model is built around five-to-six-month, low-skilled jobs in areas like hospitality. Few Americans are willing to fill them and now, thousands of foreign seasonal workers may not be allowed into the U.S. to take them.
Changes to the U.S. temporary work visa program, called H2B, are keeping out the workers that businesses count on.
For affected businesses, the financial loss could be plenty.
“It could be 20 percent,” said Allen Sylvester, president of American Tent & Table, Inc., a family-owned tent rental and party accessory business in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Sylvester, who has been with the company since 1996, says it earns roughly 85 to 90 percent of its profits in five months — the region’s outdoor wedding season. Fully staffed, the company employs seven to eight Americans and 13 H2B visa workers.
Normally it’s the former group Sylvester has a hard time hiring. But last September, Congress failed to renew a provision that effectively quadrupled the number of H2B visas available in 2016 by not counting returnees against the annual cap. This year, instead of potentially 264,000 visas, there are 66,000 — half allocated in the spring, the other half in the fall.
Businesses in colder areas like Cape Cod, which typically have later start dates, find themselves at a loss. By the time many could complete their visa applications, the cap had been reached.
“Instead of bringing 3,000 workers here, we right now are bringing 300 workers,” said Jane Nichols Bishop, president of Peak Season Workforce, a family-owned business that helps local companies secure annual H2B visas.
Bishop, who calls herself “Mama Visa,” says the 90-day application process that businesses must follow to gain seasonal employment is stringent, including evidence of advertising to recruit American workers.
Of the 171 applications she personally filed for clients, Bishop says 24 made their way through the Department of Homeland Security before all the visas were gone.
Why not hire more Americans?
At 3.4 percent, the February unemployment rate in Massachusetts is lower than the current national average, 4.5 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But as Falmouth, Massachusetts, resident Paul Skudder said, the numbers don’t paint the whole picture on Cape Cod, a community with a growing number of retirees and decreasing number of youth.
“There is a limited number of job opportunities on the Cape for college-educated professional or near professional people, which overall leads to a little bit of an exodus of bright, educated young people,” Skudder said.
Eligible job seekers who are willing to accept low-skilled employment, generally need a permanent source of income. And students can offer just three months of labor during their summer breaks, not five or six.
The well-being of the younger population is also a factor. In 2015, Cape Cod suffered the highest per capita death rate by opioid overdose in Massachusetts and remains one of the most affected areas in the country.
“A lot of the kids I used to know have now passed away,” said Prince Wright, who attended high school in Falmouth. “That’s the big problem right now … most of our locals are not coming in no more. Either they’re locked up or they moved away because of the changes on the Cape.”
More effort needed?
But along Main Street in the Cape’s largest town, not all are convinced that businesses are trying their best to hire local.
“It’s good for the [foreigners] that are coming over here on work visas, but it also takes away from the people that are living on the streets that can work,” said Mary Richard. “I just think it’s hard on the people here too.”
Politicians are divided on the H2B visa program, seeing it as either economically exploitative or a job-killer for Americans.
Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, send mixed messages. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the country’s top law enforcement official, has called the H2B program “detrimental to wages and job opportunities of American workers.” But Donald Trump, before he was president, employed H2B workers during peak resort season at his Florida golf club, Mar-a-Lago.
H2B-reliant businesses worry that the visa is unfairly lumped into Trump’s hard-line stance on immigration. And in Bishop’s mind, some legislators simply don’t understand seasonal economies.
“When people come to Cape Cod and the islands, they come to see and visit us. It’s full employment, we are busy, there’s traffic, so they don’t even realize there is a labor shortage,” Bishop said. “But when you come here in January, you may be the only car on the road for quite a while.”
Hiring strategy
Jim Underdah, general manager at the Coonamessett Inn, considers himself one of the lucky few to secure his share of foreign seasonal workers from Jamaica. Still, a backlog in the system has delayed their arrival and forced him to repurpose the limited workforce he retains year-round.
In anticipation of this, Underdah says many businesses like his choose to employ workers full-time even during the offseason, when he doesn’t need them.
“I have people in the kitchen that we work 40 hours for the winter, so they’re not going to leave me,” Underdah said. “They’re gonna say, ‘Hey, they’re treating us good.’ They’re going to be here this spring. They’re going to get me through till hopefully the workers get in.”
Paul Dean, who runs a seafood retail and catering business, was not as lucky. Lacking the workforce he needs to keep his multiple operations running, he says he may be forced to close one of his locations a couple days a week.
Like Sylvester, Dean predicts this would amount to a loss of 20 percent of annual income.
“That means I’m buying 20 percent less product from local vendors,” Dean said. “We’re obviously collecting 20 percent less in meals tax toward the state. We’re not paying payroll taxes … there’s a huge trickle-down effect.”
Dean and Sylvester are crossing their fingers for a last-ditch effort by lawmakers to reinstate an H2B returning worker exemption before April 28, as part of its fiscal year 2017 federal spending bill. But in case that doesn’t happen, Sylvester offers last-resort advice for summer tourists.
“If you’re going to stay over, bring your sheets and some towels,” he joked, “because there’s going to be no one to clean your room.”
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Documentary Chronicles the History of Boston Marathon
On April 15, 2013, the Boston Marathon bombing shook the world. Two bombs that exploded 12 seconds apart near the finish line of the world famous race killed three people and injured an estimated 264 others who were treated at 27 hospitals. At least 14 people required amputations.
Movies such as the feature film Patriots Day have offered a dramatized account of those events. But Jon Dunham’s documentary Boston, narrated by Boston native Matt Damon, looks beyond the bombings, weaving an uplifting narrative of the race from its inception in 1897 to 2014, the year after the attacks.
Watch: Boston Documentary Chronicles the History of Boston Marathon
A lot of grieving
By the size of the race, the sheer enthusiasm of the 36,000 racers and the community spirit during the 2014 Boston Marathon, no one would have guessed that the year before, the event, its participants and the city itself had been devastated by a terrorist attack.
The bombings weighed heavily on filmmaker Jon Dunham, a marathon runner who had planned, for years before the attacks, to make a documentary about the history of the race.
“There were a number of feelings — there was certainly a lot of grieving for what had happened. I walked up and down Boylston Street every day as soon as I arrived here in Boston in January of 2014, and just thought about it every day,” the filmmaker said.
A history of the race
His documentary Boston does not focus on the pain and fear in 2013. Instead, it chronicles the Boston Marathon as an event that has fostered charity, unity and strength since its inception in 1897.
Dunham’s film follows the growth of the event through the decades. The race has become more selective, the runners faster. They come from all over the world to compete. One of them is Kenyan runner Wilson Chebet.
“Long time ago, when I was a child, I used to run to school. 3.7 kilometers. Lunchtime you come back, you go to school after lunch, and then in the evening you come home,” Chebet said.
War connection
The documentary shows how the race also has grown into a major fundraising event.
It started with Greek Olympic athlete Stylianos Kyriakides, who won the Boston Marathon in 1946 and used his notoriety as a Boston Marathon champion to raise funds and put together supplies that aided Greece after WWI, Dunham said.
He says the history of the marathon has been intrinsically connected with war.
“It is interesting to consider the marathon in the context of war, even if you want to go back to the whole idea of the marathon. … The Battle of Marathon in Greece and the Athenians having triumphed over the invading Persians and then the messenger being sent from Marathon to Athens to share new good news, that they had been victorious in this battle. That of course being the idea for creating a Marathon race came from,” Dunham said.
Ready for 2017
With just a few days before this year’s race, Boston is getting ready. T.K. Skenderian, director of communications at the Boston Athletic Association, is in the middle of the preparations.
“In the year that followed (the Boston Marathon bombing), and in the years that have followed, the sense of solidarity and community pride that has emerged from not just those injured but people locally, people from around the world, has been overwhelming. I mean that sense of civic pride, city pride, and pride in the sport of running has been enormous. Yeah, we got knocked down but we got back up in a big way.”
Two days before the 121st running of the Boston Marathon, Jon Dunham’s documentary is premiering in its namesake city.
“There are so many things we cannot control in life, but getting out and running, setting a goal like running a marathon, is something that can be done, and it really does change lives, and it is something very positive,” the Boston filmmaker said.
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Boston Documentary Chronicles the History of Boston Marathon
On April 15, 2013, the Boston Marathon bombing shook the world. Movies such as the feature film “Patriots Day” offered a dramatized account of those events. But Jon Dunham’s documentary “Boston,” narrated by Boston native Matt Damon, looks beyond the bombings, weaving an uplifting narrative of the race from its inception in 1897 to 2014, the year after the attacks. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
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Star Wars at 40 Celebration Opens with Surprise Ford Appearance
How do you celebrate 40 years of Star Wars in 90 minutes?
With a surprise Harrison Ford appearance, a touching Carrie Fisher tribute, a John Williams performance and a fair amount of jokes about George Lucas’ dialogue, of course.
Attendees at Star Wars Celebration were treated to that and more Thursday in Orlando, Florida, at the kick-off of the four-day fan event marking the anniversary of Lucas’ space saga.
Actor Warwick Davis moderated the sprawling look-back at the four decade legacy, featuring appearances by Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy, Mark Hamill, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew and Hayden Christensen.
There were also video messages from Liam Neeson, who joked that a film was being made about Jar Jar Binks going to the dark side, and from Samuel L. Jackson, who cheekily suggested that his prequel character Mace Windu is not dead.
“Let’s make it happen,” Jackson said directly to Kennedy. “All you gotta do is say the word.”
Ford sticks the landing
Ford’s unexpected appearance garnered the most enthusiastic response from the thousands of fans in the convention center.
“I can’t believe we managed to keep it a secret considering you landed your plane” on Interstate 4, Davis joked when the applause died down.
“It was a good landing,” Ford said, smiling.
The actor has historically had a tenuous relationship with the fandom around his character Han Solo, but he appeared genuinely happy to reminisce Thursday about the lasting legacy of Lucas’ creation.
Lucas said he had worked with Ford on American Graffiti when he gave Ford the part because it was about “spaceships and flying” and he could fly.
Ford, quoting another of his iconic characters, Indiana Jones, quipped back, “Fly? Yes. Land? No.”
Well-told tales
For Star Wars super fans, most of the behind the scenes stories told were as well-known as the stories in the actual films — from the fact that Lucas’ inspiration for Chewbacca was his dog Indiana to the actors’ problems with Lucas’ fanciful and technical dialogue.
“How can you make it sound like it’s spontaneous dialogue rolling off the tongue?” Hamill asked.
“He was right. It was a bit much,” Lucas responded.
Ford laughed.
“I said to George, ‘You can type this stuff but you can’t say it. Move your mouth when you’re typing,”’ Ford said.
Fisher tribute
Missing, of course, was Carrie Fisher, who died late last year at 60. Lucas and Kennedy saved their words about Fisher for the end.
“She was very strong, very smart, very funny, very bold and very tough. There were not very many people like her. They’re one in a billion,” Lucas said, recalling Fisher’s willingness to tell him when his dialogue was too difficult to say in portraying Princess Leia. “We’ll all love her forever and ever.”
Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd, who acted alongside her mother in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, appeared on stage decked in Princess Leia white to remember her mother and grandmother Debbie Reynolds. Hamill also has planned a Fisher tribute for Friday.
Star Wars composer John Williams closed out the session, conducting the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of his score, from the Imperial March to the Main Title.
Star Wars Celebration runs through Sunday and includes a myriad of events for fans, many of which can be streamed online.
Perhaps the most anticipated is a talk with Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson on Friday in advance of its December release.
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