Month: January 2018

US Officials: No Specific Threats to Pyeongchang Winter Olympics

The United States says it is not aware of any specific threats to the Winter Olympics in South Korea next month, despite nuclear tensions with neighboring North Korea.  

Senior State Department officials in charge of security for the U.S. Olympic team told reporters Wednesday they have been working closely with South Korea for two years to prepare for the 2018 Winter Games that begin with an opening ceremony February 9 in the town of Pyeongchang. 

Assistant secretary for diplomatic security Michael Evanoff says his team is well aware of the nuclear tensions with North Korea and has prepared for all contingencies.

“I mean, we’re only less than a hundred miles (160 kilometers) from North Korea, so we’ve planned for all contingencies.”

Steve Goldstein, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, had high praise for the South Korean government.

“Authorities of the Republic of Korea are responsible for the overall security of the games, and we’re confident in their ability to host a safe and successful event this year,” Goldstein said.

Diplomatic security chief Evanoff agreed, saying the U.S. working relationship with South Korea has been “exceptional.”

Senior State Department officials said about 100 diplomatic security agents will be deployed to Seoul and to Pyeongchang for the Winter Games and the Paralympics, roughly the same number that have been sent to previous Olympic games. 

The U.S. Olympic delegation will number about 275, and some 60,000 Americans are expected to attend the games, including Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen Pence.  

North Korea is also sending athletes to the games. The North Korean government is planning a major parade or rally the day before the opening ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of its military. Goldstein said he hopes North Korea will embrace the Olympic spirit.

“While we would prefer that this parade not occur on Feb. 8, it is our hope, and I know the hope of South Korea, that the North Koreans who agreed to send people to the games to participate will join with all the nations of the world in celebrating the athletes.  

Goldstein said fundamentally, the Olympic Games are about the athletes.  

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Dating App Tinder Cited for Discriminating Against Over-30s

A California court has ruled that the popular dating app Tinder violated age discrimination laws by charging users 30 and older more than younger ones.

Allan Candelore of California sued the app company over the pricing of its Tinder Plus premium service. Tinder Plus costs $9.99 per month for users younger than 30, while those 30 and older are charged $19.99 per month. The features for Tinder Plus are identical for users regardless of age.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brian Currey ruled in favor of Allan Candelore, 33, of San Diego, saying Tinder’s pricing violates California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. That law “provides protection from discrimination by all business establishments in California.”

The company countered in court documents that it is “self-evident that people under 30 face financial challenges” and this “common knowledge provides a reasonable and non-arbitrary basis for Tinder to offer a discount to people under 30.”

“Why is Tinder allowed to get away with charging me more for the exact same product as any other 18-28 year old?” asked Reddit user jshrlzwrld02. “Nothing magically changes at age 29 on Tinder. I don’t get new features. I don’t get anything extra. So why is this not discrimination based on age/sex/religion/orientation?”

Tinder has faced similar accusations before. In 2015, Michael Manapol sued Tinder for age and gender discrimination, but a judge dismissed that claim, saying Manapol failed to show how he was harmed by the allegations. Also in 2015, Wired magazine took issue with Tinder’s pricing tiers, calling them “ageist.”

“The only time pricing should be staggered is if each step up in cost coincides with a step-up in service or concern,” said Robert Carbone, a digital marketer with the LinkedIn networking service.

“Tinder is a privately owned company and should be able to charge any amount they see fit to whoever wants to use their service. No one is forcing consumers to use Tinder. This ruling is an infringement of capitalistic practices,” said Katja Case, a math major at Iowa State University, on LinkedIn.

Tinder is popular among college-age people.

Go to our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn to tell us what you think, thanks!

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Dating App Tinder Cited for Age Discrimination

A California court has ruled that the popular dating app Tinder violated age discrimination laws by charging users 30 and older more than younger ones.

Allan Candelore of California sued the app company over the pricing of its Tinder Plus premium service. Tinder Plus costs $9.99 per month for users younger than 30, while those 30 and older are charged $19.99 per month. The features for Tinder Plus are identical for users regardless of age.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brian Currey ruled in favor of Allan Candelore, 33, of San Diego, saying Tinder’s pricing violates California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. That law “provides protection from discrimination by all business establishments in California.”

The company countered in court documents that it is “self-evident that people under 30 face financial challenges” and this “common knowledge provides a reasonable and non-arbitrary basis for Tinder to offer a discount to people under 30.”

“Why is Tinder allowed to get away with charging me more for the exact same product as any other 18-28 year old?” asked Reddit user jshrlzwrld02. “Nothing magically changes at age 29 on Tinder. I don’t get new features. I don’t get anything extra. So why is this not discrimination based on age/sex/religion/orientation?”

Tinder has faced similar accusations before. In 2015, Michael Manapol sued Tinder for age and gender discrimination, but a judge dismissed that claim, saying Manapol failed to show how he was harmed by the allegations. Also in 2015, Wired magazine took issue with Tinder’s pricing tiers, calling them “ageist.”

“The only time pricing should be staggered is if each step up in cost coincides with a step-up in service or concern,” said Robert Carbone, a digital marketer with the LinkedIn networking service.

“Tinder is a privately owned company and should be able to charge any amount they see fit to whoever wants to use their service. No one is forcing consumers to use Tinder. This ruling is an infringement of capitalistic practices,” said Katja Case, a math major at Iowa State University, on LinkedIn.

Tinder is popular among college-age people.

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USA Gymnastics: All Directors Have Resigned After Abuse Scandal

USA Gymnastics, the sport’s U.S. governing body, said Wednesday that all its remaining directors have resigned following revelations that the longtime team doctor had sexually abused numerous athletes under his care.

A USA Gymnastics spokeswoman on Friday had said that the full board intended to resign. The U.S. Olympic Committee threatened to revoke the organization’s governing authority if the full board had not stepped down by Wednesday, after former team doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexual assault charges.

“We are in the process of moving forward with forming an interim board of directors during the month of February, in accordance with the USOC’s requirements,” USA Gymnastics said in a statement. “USA Gymnastics will provide information about this process within the next few days.”

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University Researchers Face Increasing Obstacles in Applying for Grants

Vaccines. Popular sports drinks. Computers.

They share one quality: They were invented by researchers working at a college or university.

Victoria McGovern says research leads to greater discovery and better education.

McGovern is a senior program officer with the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, an organization that supports medical research in the United States and Canada.

“It’s a very good idea to connect the discovery of new things to the teaching of new students,” she told VOA, “because you don’t want people who come out of their education thinking that the world around them is full of solved problems. You want people to come out of an education excited about solving problems themselves.”

Research, however, costs money and most colleges have limited budgets, as well as competing goals and needs.

A large part of being a researcher at a college or university involves applying for grant money, McGovern says, such as to private companies and organizations like hers, or local and national governments.

The National Institutes of Health, or NIH, is an example. The NIH is the U.S. government agency that supports medical and public health research, distributing about $32 billion a year.

Increasingly complex process

The application process for grant money is highly competitive, McGovern says. It can be challenging for researchers who are less skilled at writing.

Kristine Kulage argues that it is more difficult than ever for university researchers to secure funding. Kulage is the director of research and scholarly development at Columbia University School of Nursing in New York City.

Kulage says that in the 20 years she has been working in university research, the grant application process has become longer and more complex.

“Researchers don’t have time to conduct their research, write their grants and learn how to use all of these new systems through which they have to submit their grants, and all of the ways in which they have to be compliant with regulations,” Kulage told VOA.

“There are so many rules now … it takes individuals who are now trained as research administrators to know what those rules are … and know whether or not the rules are being followed.”

Investing in help

Kulage says schools must do more to support their researchers in gaining grant money. Last November, she published a study that looked at how the nursing school invested $127,000 to create a support system between 2012 and 2016. This system employed administrators to complete grant applications, freeing researchers to spend more time on their work.

Administrators and other researchers met with the grant writers to review the applications. The team was expected to defend its proposal.

Kulage says that over those five years, proposals that went through review were almost twice as likely to be accepted. That $127,000 investment led to Columbia’s School of Nursing earning $3 million in outside funding.

McGovern and Kulage say applying for research funding is very difficult. Having one other person read a proposal and provide feedback is essential.

Large companies often conduct much research and development, but it is typically limited to their industries. University researchers have the freedom to take risks on less popular ideas.

And those risks can lead to important discoveries that colleges and universities have a responsibility to share with the world, she says.

Have you had to write a grant to support your research? Please visit us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

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Connected Thermometer Tracks Spread, Intensity of Flu

This year’s flu season in the U.S. is the worst in 15 years and health officials predict there are weeks of sickness ahead. One company’s “smart thermometer” is tracking how the flu is spreading across the country in real time by gathering data every time someone takes a temperature. Michelle Quinn reports.

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Connected Thermometer Tracks the Spread and Intensity of the Flu

When a child feels sick, one of the first things a parent does is reach for a thermometer.

That common act intrigued Inder Singh, a long-time health policy expert.

What if the thermometer could be a communication device – connecting people with information about illnesses going around and gathering real time data on diseases as they spread? 

That’s the idea behind Singh’s firm Kinsa, a health data company based in San Francisco that sells “smart” thermometers.

Worst flu season in years

With the U.S. in the midst of its worst flu season in years, Kinsa has been on the forefront of tracking the spread and severity of flu-like symptoms by region.

The company says its data is a close match to flu data tracked by the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Whereas the CDC collects from state and regional reports, Kinsa can spot fever spikes in regions or even by cities, said Singh.

Fast and accurate information about how disease is spreading can make a difference during a health crisis.

“If you knew when and where a disease was starting, you could target the people who needed the treatment and potentially prevent pandemics and epidemics from occurring,” said Singh, founder and chief executive of Kinsa.

How it works

Kinsa thermometers, which range in price from $14.99 to $49.99, connect via Bluetooth to a smartphone app, which pose questions about a person’s symptoms. The customer’s personal information is private, the firm said.

With its thermometers in 500,000 households, Kinsa receives 25,000 temperature readings per day.

The company can’t diagnose illnesses or distinguish between different kinds of sicknesses. But from gathering information about individuals’ fevers and other symptoms, it can report where flu-like symptoms are peaking. In recent weeks, Missouri and Kansas have been the hardest hit, Kinsa said. 

Selling aggregated data 

Beyond selling thermometers and advertising on its app, Kinsa makes money by selling data – stripped of any personally identifiable information – to companies that want to know where and how illness is spreading – cough and cold companies, disinfectant manufacturers, orange juice sellers. Sales of toothbrushes spike during flu season, Singh says.

Companies “want to know when and where illness is striking on a general geolocation basis,” he said. Firms stock shelves with products and change marketing plans if they know how an illness is progressing.

Kinsa has launched a program in schools, where it gives away thermometers, so parents can learn about illness trends locally. The company is also starting a new initiative with some U.S. firms, which buy Kinsa thermometers for their employees. When an employee shows a fever, Kinsa can inform the person about available company benefits.

At the moment, Kinsa thermometers are sold just in the U.S. But the company plans to go global.

“Imagine a living breathing map where you can see where and when disease is spreading,” Singh said. “That’s what we want.”

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Rare Picasso Painting Starts Tour Before Next Month’s Auction

A rare Picasso painting will be auctioned off in London next month.  The 1937 work titled “Femme au beret et a la robe quadrillee” (Woman in beret and checked dress), inspired by the painter’s French lover Marie-Therese Walter is being shown in Hong Kong, Taipei, Los Angeles and New York before being sold. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the painting’s Hong Kong debut is a clear indication of the growing importance of the Asian art market.

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Mugabe’s Demise Brings Hope to Zimbabwe’s Ousted White Farmers

A new political dawn in Zimbabwe has sparked talk among farmers of land reform and the return of some whites who lost their land and livelihoods to President Robert Mugabe during a 37-year rule that drove the economy to collapse.

Mugabe, 93, resigned in November after the army and his ZANU-PF party turned against him, prompting optimism among some of the thousands of white farmers ousted in the early 2000s on the grounds of redressing imbalances from the colonial era.

For colonialists seized some of the best agricultural land that remained in the hands of white farmers after independence in 1980 leaving many blacks effectively landless and making land ownership one of Zimbabwe’s most sensitive political topics.

Now some white landowners hope the post-Mugabe regime may address the land issue, either through compensation or returning land, and try to resuscitate a once vibrant agricultural sector boosting an economy once seen as one of Africa’s great hopes.

“We are convinced positive signals will come quickly in terms of property rights,” Ben Purcel Gilpin, director of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), which represents white and black farmers, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It would send a good signal to people outside Zimbabwe.” 

New president and long-time Mugabe ally, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has promised a raft of changes since he took office, including a return to the rule of law and respect for property rights.

Land ownership has been a key issue for decades in Zimbabwe dating back to British colonial rule in what was then Rhodesia.

At independence, white farmers owned more than 70 percent of the most fertile land and generated 80 percent of the country’s agricultural output, according to academics.

Reforms began after independence with a “willing buyer, willing seller” system aimed at redistributing land to poor black subsistence farmers. In the 1990s, compulsory acquisition of land began with some funding provided by Britain.

But for many Zimbabweans change was too slow and Mugabe approved radical land reforms that encouraged occupation of some 4,000 white-owned farms. Land went to his supporters with no knowledge of farming and thousands of white farmers fled.

The violent farm seizures saw Zimbabwe forfeit its status as the bread basket of Africa and led to a collapse of many industries that depended on agriculture. Among those were paper mills, textile firms, leather tanners and clothing companies.

As a result the country failed to generate foreign currency, resulting in the central bank printing money which led to unprecedented levels of hyper-inflation and high unemployment.

New start

Now some white farmers are starting to reclaim their land.

“White commercial farmers, like all other Zimbabweans, could apply for land from the Government and join the queue or go into joint ventures,” Mnangagwa told a former white commercial farmer during a recent visit to Namibia.

The CFU’s Gilpin – who quit farming and moved to Harare after his farm was compulsorily acquired by the government in 2005 – said sound policies from the new team could win support and help the economy.

He said compensation rather than putting people back into their properties might be the best route as many farmers are now too old to farm, some had died and others migrated.

The current situation – where resettled farmers had 99-year leases – was also untenable as the leases were not accepted by banks as collateral against borrowing.

Gilpin said this effectively made the land dead capital, as banks could not sell if farmers failed to pay back loans, so the government should instead offer farmers freehold titles.

Property rights expert Lloyd Mhishi, a senior partner in the law firm Mhishi Nkomo Legal Practice, said although Mnangagwa spoke about compensating farmers whose land was expropriated, he did not give specifics and title deeds of the former white farmers had no legal force after repossession.

Political way out

“As far as the law of the country is concerned, the title deeds that the former white commercial farmers hold do not guarantee them title,” Mhishi said in an interview.

But the lawyer said there were positive signs that the new administration realised land was a vital cog in the economy.

“I see there will be an attempt to make land useful, productive,” he said. “The land tenure side needs to be addressed to make land useful.”

Independent economist John Robertson, a former Advisor to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, said, however, that any idea of compensation should be dropped and former white commercial farmers should get back to their land and resume work.

“I’d rather see them get back their land and start farming again than paid out and emigrating. We need their skills. If people who oppose that idea could be just successful, where have they been for the past 20 years?” he said.

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Mugabe’s Political Demise Brings Hope to Zimbabwe’s Ousted White Farmers

A new political dawn in Zimbabwe has sparked talk among farmers of land reform and the return of some whites who lost their land and livelihoods to President Robert Mugabe during a 37-year rule that drove the economy to collapse.

Mugabe, 93, resigned in November after the army and his ZANU-PF party turned against him, prompting optimism among some of the thousands of white farmers ousted in the early 2000s on the grounds of redressing imbalances from the colonial era.

For colonialists seized some of the best agricultural land that remained in the hands of white farmers after independence in 1980 leaving many blacks effectively landless and making land ownership one of Zimbabwe’s most sensitive political topics.

Now some white landowners hope the post-Mugabe regime may address the land issue, either through compensation or returning land, and try to resuscitate a once vibrant agricultural sector boosting an economy once seen as one of Africa’s great hopes.

“We are convinced positive signals will come quickly in terms of property rights,” Ben Purcel Gilpin, director of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), which represents white and black farmers, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It would send a good signal to people outside Zimbabwe.” 

New president and long-time Mugabe ally, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has promised a raft of changes since he took office, including a return to the rule of law and respect for property rights.

Land ownership has been a key issue for decades in Zimbabwe dating back to British colonial rule in what was then Rhodesia.

At independence, white farmers owned more than 70 percent of the most fertile land and generated 80 percent of the country’s agricultural output, according to academics.

Reforms began after independence with a “willing buyer, willing seller” system aimed at redistributing land to poor black subsistence farmers. In the 1990s, compulsory acquisition of land began with some funding provided by Britain.

But for many Zimbabweans change was too slow and Mugabe approved radical land reforms that encouraged occupation of some 4,000 white-owned farms. Land went to his supporters with no knowledge of farming and thousands of white farmers fled.

The violent farm seizures saw Zimbabwe forfeit its status as the bread basket of Africa and led to a collapse of many industries that depended on agriculture. Among those were paper mills, textile firms, leather tanners and clothing companies.

As a result the country failed to generate foreign currency, resulting in the central bank printing money which led to unprecedented levels of hyper-inflation and high unemployment.

New start

Now some white farmers are starting to reclaim their land.

“White commercial farmers, like all other Zimbabweans, could apply for land from the Government and join the queue or go into joint ventures,” Mnangagwa told a former white commercial farmer during a recent visit to Namibia.

The CFU’s Gilpin – who quit farming and moved to Harare after his farm was compulsorily acquired by the government in 2005 – said sound policies from the new team could win support and help the economy.

He said compensation rather than putting people back into their properties might be the best route as many farmers are now too old to farm, some had died and others migrated.

The current situation – where resettled farmers had 99-year leases – was also untenable as the leases were not accepted by banks as collateral against borrowing.

Gilpin said this effectively made the land dead capital, as banks could not sell if farmers failed to pay back loans, so the government should instead offer farmers freehold titles.

Property rights expert Lloyd Mhishi, a senior partner in the law firm Mhishi Nkomo Legal Practice, said although Mnangagwa spoke about compensating farmers whose land was expropriated, he did not give specifics and title deeds of the former white farmers had no legal force after repossession.

Political way out

“As far as the law of the country is concerned, the title deeds that the former white commercial farmers hold do not guarantee them title,” Mhishi said in an interview.

But the lawyer said there were positive signs that the new administration realised land was a vital cog in the economy.

“I see there will be an attempt to make land useful, productive,” he said. “The land tenure side needs to be addressed to make land useful.”

Independent economist John Robertson, a former Advisor to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, said, however, that any idea of compensation should be dropped and former white commercial farmers should get back to their land and resume work.

“I’d rather see them get back their land and start farming again than paid out and emigrating. We need their skills. If people who oppose that idea could be just successful, where have they been for the past 20 years?” he said.

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Beirut Guide Gives Walking Tours of City’s History and His Own

Tour guide Ronnie Chatah, 36, is once again doing what he loves after a four-year hiatus – telling the stories that have shaped Beirut’s history from ancient to modern times.

Chatah put the walking tours on hold in late 2013 after the assassination of his father Mohamad Chatah, a former minister and diplomat. He was worried he would not be able to give an impartial view of the city, he said.

“My father is buried in what is probably the most climactic part of the tour,” he said, referring to Martyrs’ Square, a pockmarked statue in the epicenter, where many Lebanese have rallied in times of political crisis since World War I. “It is not easy to look at your father’s burial site and just ignore the emotions.”

But reviving the tour has had a surprising effect.

“I have not had a better therapy session,” said Chatah, who first launched the tours in 2009.

Now for four hours every other Sunday, people follow Chatah as he explains some of the most complicated aspects of Lebanon’s capital.

He explains that the local currency is pegged to the U.S. dollar and about how since the civil war political power is shared between Lebanon’s 18 different religious sects. He also explains why so many abandoned heritage buildings have been seemingly left to disintegrate.

Standing outside what was once the Holiday Inn hotel, Chatah recounts how the building that once exemplified Beirut’s Seventies glamour became an icon of the 1975-1990 civil war only a few weeks after it opened. It became the military headquarters of whichever militant faction was winning the war in Beirut over the next 15 years.

For him, the building – with its grey exterior, huge gaping holes and revolving balcony – is the best reflection of how the Lebanese have yet to make peace.

“We don’t reflect properly and I think that is our problem. Maybe that is part of our story too, that we are constantly avoiding the deeper issues, and hence a country that still cannot stand properly on its own two feet,” he said.

The tour allows visitors to discover parts of the city that have either ceased to exist or cordoned off by security because of close proximity to government buildings or politicians’ residences. This includes what used to be the old Jewish neighborhood, once home to a small community that is now all but gone save for a restored synagogue.

“I thought I knew the area but I was surprised to find out about … a neighborhood that I never knew existed,” Sarah Harakeh, 24, a teacher said.

Chatah said he had been planning to resume the walks for just a couple of months, but now there are tours scheduled for the rest of the year.

“That is the persuasion of this city, you keep coming back, and even when you know it is not good for you,” he said.

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Cuban Refugee Sets Cold War Stage in ‘Blind Date’

When U.S. President Ronald Reagan met Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev in Geneva, Switzerland, in November 1985, it was the start of a thaw in Cold War tensions that had dramatically escalated between the two nuclear-armed superpowers.

“It was a real moment in Cold War history in that no general secretary after the invasion of Afghanistan had sat across the table from the president of the United States,” explains playwright Rogelio Martinez.

The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led to a six-year freeze in relations with the United States.  A subsequent increase in military spending on both sides, and a wider gap of understanding between the superpowers, led to increased anxiety — with the threat of nuclear annihilation hanging over the globe.

It’s one of the underlying narratives that drove Martinez to dig deeper into an event he didn’t fully understand at the time, when he was a 15-year-old student.  His research grew into the stage play “Blind Date.”

“Though the play has to do with Reagan and Gorbachev, it’s not. It’s about me, ultimately,” Rogelio explained to VOA.  “It’s about the world I grew up in.  It’s an extremely personal play, but it’s also a historical play.”

Martinez grew up in Cuba under the communist regime of Fidel Castro, and fled with family members to Florida during the 1980 Muriel boatlift.

What informs the dialogue and themes in “Blind Date” surrounding events during the historic Geneva summit comes partly from his own life experience — first under Soviet influence in Cuba, and later under American democracy, led by “The Great Communicator.”

“I started to write the play, and I realized that Reagan himself was a bit of an enigma,” says Martinez.  “He could pivot, which is a wonderful thing in politicians. He could change. He followed his own course and his own instincts.”

 

This was not information Martinez gleaned from an official transcript of the 1985 summit — which he says doesn’t exist — but comes from other sources: lengthy letters Gorbachev and Reagan exchanged before the meeting.

“They didn’t speak in soundbites. They actually found a great responsibility with every single word they put on that page.”

“It had to be thought out more thoughtfully,” says actor William Dick who portrays Gorbachev in the production. “Dialogue is crucial. There was a huge abyss between these two people and these two cultures that could have led to a nuclear disaster. But they had the courage to reach out in the dark blindly to each other to make an overture. They were both skeptical. They both thought it wouldn’t work. And it was difficult, but they began to talk.”

Actor Rob Riley plays Reagan opposite Dick’s Gorbachev, and says what unfolds onstage in “Blind Date” isn’t just a serious examination — it’s also infused with some humor — but it’s a history lesson that has some relevance today.

“Any play about international politics and leadership is going to have resonance with the present,” he told VOA, something playwright Martinez hopes audiences can learn from.

“There is incredible optimism in the play, something that is lacking in today’s times,” he says, “which says problems can be solved. They have to be solved in a way that forces people to rethink their beliefs, and to re-examine why they believe the things they believe.”

“I think the overarching theme applies to today,” says Dick. “It’s about dialogue. It’s about talking. As Reagan says in the play, not talking at each other or about each other but talking to each other is the crucial thing. Daring to go on that ‘blind date.’”

“Blind Date” appears at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago through Feb. 25. Martinez hopes wider audiences will have the chance to see the production, and believes what makes for good theater might someday make for a good film.

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Jordan Peele Talks Oscars, ‘Get Out’ and Whoopi Goldberg

Jordan Peele has been dreaming of his Oscar moment since he was 13, but now that it’s happened, he can hardly believe it.

The 38-year-old received Academy Award nominations last week for best picture, director and original screenplay for his directorial debut, “Get Out.” The star of the horror/satire, Daniel Kaluuya, was also nominated for best actor.

“Get Out” may be Peele’s breakthrough, but the actor, writer, director and producer has been honing his skills for more than a dozen years. He started getting awards notice in 2008, when he shared in an Emmy nomination for a sketch he wrote for MADtv. He was nominated seven more times for his contributions to “Key & Peele,” the hit Comedy Central sketch show he created with Keegan-Michael Key. Peele also co-wrote and co-starred (with Key) in the 2016 action-comedy “Keanu.”

He said having his work recognized by the film academy has given him “faith in my voice.”

“It’s like jet fuel,” Peele said in an interview after last week’s nominations. “It makes me want to make as many movies that I can in my life.”

Peele’s comments have been edited for clarity and brevity.

AP: So how does it feel to be a triple Academy Award nominee?

Peele: Well, I’m not used to hearing yet. It’s a really overwhelming thing to try and process. I’m trying understand how I got here from this time last year not knowing if this movie was going to really work or really not work. 

AP: What a difference a year makes.

Peele: I’m definitely feeling the love and feeling with joy and honor of this accomplishment. But it is it has been a bittersweet year knowing that it has not been a great one for everybody.

AP: How was Oscar nominations morning for you?

Peele: I woke up a few minutes after the announcements were made. I was just getting really great texts from just about everybody I’ve ever met. And my (6-month-old) son slept through the night, so that was also huge. So it was like kind of a party at my house… Both he and I with our greatest accomplishments to date on the same morning. 

AP: Did you allow yourself to consider this possibility when you were writing sketches for “Key & Peele?”

Peele: I’ve been dreaming about this moment since I was 13. I’ve gone through times where I believed in it and times when I didn’t believe in it. So to have it happen, it comes with a really important lesson and realization for me which is that it’s bigger than me. It’s an important thing for a lot of people and the people who supported the film and the people out there who have the same dream but feel like they can’t do it for whatever reason.

AP: Audiences loved “Get Out,” but does the academy love feel different?

Peele: Yes, it does mean something different. I didn’t know that it would, but now that this has arrived, I’m reminded of when I watched Whoopi Goldberg win her Oscar for “Ghost.” And I remember she sent a message out in her speech that was for me. She said, ‘Don’t let anything stop you. If you want this, if you have a dream, follow that dream and you can achieve it.’ And I’ll always remember that. So hopefully that’s the message that this sends to other young artists of color and women and people who … feel like they’re outsiders and won’t be won’t be allowed into this industry or won’t be accepted. Hopefully they can sort of feel some of that message too.

AP: Is the recognition even sweeter given that this is an unconventional film with a lot to say?

Peele: Making this film, putting it out was very scary. I thought that it was very possible that the world wouldn’t be ready; that they would reject it or that it would not be received. But I knew that I loved it. I knew that it was something that needed to be said. And so the fact that it was scary is kind of how I knew it was important and that was it was my duty as an artist to face that fear and really risk it all.

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Refugees Ready to Go Green, Become ‘Innovation Hubs’

Many refugees would like to buy low-carbon stoves and lights but poor access in camps and a lack of funding is forcing them to rely on “dirty and expensive” fuels, a report said Tuesday.

Millions of refugees worldwide struggle to access energy for cooking, lighting and communication and often pay high costs for fuels like firewood, which are bad for their health.

Yet two-thirds would consider paying for clean cookstoves and more than one-third for solar household products, according to a survey by the Moving Energy Initiative (MEI), a partnership among Britain, the United Nations and charities.

“Energy providers don’t tend to think of refugees as potential energy consumers, but the opportunities to build a relationship with them are huge,” Mattia Vianello, one of the report’s authors, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

Clean energy for refugees is a global priority for the U.N. refugee agency, which provides free solar power to thousands of displaced people in camps in Jordan and Kenya.

Campaigners are seeking to create a market for cleaner-burning stoves and fuels to supply millions of households worldwide that are using inefficient, dangerous methods.

Perilous smoke

When burned in open fires and traditional stoves, wood, charcoal and other solid fuels emit harmful smoke that claims millions of lives each year, according to the Clean Cooking Working Capital Fund, which promotes stoves that produce less pollution.

In Uganda, refugees collect wood from surrounding areas, “devastating” the local environment and creating tensions with locals, Raffaela Bellanca, an energy adviser with the charity Mercy Corps, said in emailed comments.

Humanitarians should work with the private sector to provide more sustainable energy to displaced people, said the report, which surveyed about 500 refugees, business owners and aid workers in Burkina Faso and Kenya.

“Refugee camps have the potential to become energy innovation hubs with a spillover effect on surrounding host communities,” Bellanca said.

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Colorful Makeover Puts Mumbai Slum on Tourist Map

A colorful paint job has transformed one of Mumbai’s drab hilltop slums into a tourist destination, even prompting comparisons with Italy’s picturesque Amalfi Coast.

During a recent journey on a Mumbai metro train, Dedeepya Reddy was struck by the grim appearance of a slum in Asalpha in the city’s eastern suburbs as she stared out from her air-conditioned carriage.

Reddy, a Harvard University-educated co-founder of a creative agency, was keen to brighten the lives of slum residents, while also changing the perception of slums being dirty and dangerous, and decided on a simple makeover.

Armed with dozens of cans of colorful paint, Reddy and a team of about 700 volunteers painted the walls and alleyways of the hilltop slum over two weekends last month.

Residents, at first skeptical, also got involved and helped paint quirky murals, the 31-year-old said.

“When you look at slums, you think they are shabby and dirty, and that also becomes a reflection of the people who live there,” Reddy told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“We used bright colors to change how slums and their residents are viewed. It also gives residents a sense of pride and dignity about their homes.”

Up to 37 million households, or about a quarter of India’s urban population, live in informal housing including slums because of an acute shortage of affordable housing, according to social consultancy FSG.

In space-starved Mumbai, which has some of the priciest real estate in the world, the shortage is even more critical, with hundreds of migrants from rural areas cramming into the city every day to seek better prospects.

Reddy’s Chal Rang De (Let’s Color It) charity has seven other slums, similarly situated on hillocks, on its wishlist, she said.

Locals and tourists have thronged Asalpha in recent weeks, posting pictures on Instagram which have drawn comparisons to Italy’s Amalfi Coast.

Their interactions with residents are a welcome change, Reddy said.

For resident Aparna Chaudhuri, who has lived in Asalpha for about a dozen years, the paint job was welcome.

“Earlier, our house looked dull. Now it looks good,” said Chaudhuri, who picked pink for her home. “Everyone is also keeping the neighborhood clean now.”

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Helen Mirren Talks ‘Winchester’ Film, Impact of Gun Deaths

Helen Mirren says her new film “Winchester” isn’t a horror flick, but rather a ghost story with foreign roots and a distinct American element — the psychological impact of gun deaths.

 

Mirren plays the real-life Sarah Winchester, a 19th-century heiress who inherited a massive fortune from her husband’s creation of the Winchester repeating rifle shortly after the Civil War. In the film, Winchester believes she is haunted by those killed by the firearm, which allowed for more rapid firing than previous rifles.

 

“It’s a ghost story, hopefully in the tradition, the very grand tradition, of Japanese ghost stories, ghost films,” Mirren said in a recent interview. “You know, the Japanese love ghost stories and have great belief in the power of the ancestor spirits, of the ancestors, as many cultures do.”

 

Part of the film was shot at Winchester’s mansion in San Jose, California, where she moved after the death of her husband in 1881. Now known as the “Winchester Mystery House,” it is a popular tourist attraction and has more than 160 rooms, 10,000 windows, 2,000 doors and 40 staircases.

 

According the lore around Winchester’s life, she ordered constant construction on the home to try to confuse the ghosts she believed were haunting her.

 

“There are many theories why she did this,” Mirren said. “And one of the theories that we explore in the film. She was trying to placate the ghosts of the people who’d been killed by the Winchester rifle. She felt their deaths very strongly. She felt responsible. She felt the weight of their deaths upon them. And she was trying, in her own way, to placate their spirits.”

 

Despite “Winchester’s” themes, Mirren, 72, said the film isn’t trying to make any broad statements about gun ownership in America.

 

“What I like about it and I think … about America is that it doesn’t deal with whether you can carry guns or not. That’s kind of not the issue,” she said. “The issue is more putting the question mark or the weight of moral decision upon the people who make a fortune from making arms — whether they’re guns, bombs, grenades … or whatever it is. It puts a moral decision upon the people who make huge fortunes from making and then I would say the armaments dealers in the world I would like to see it… I see it personally in a much more global way.”

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NEM Foundation: Coincheck Hackers Trying to Move Stolen Cryptocurrency

Hackers who stole around $530 million worth of cryptocurrency from the Coincheck exchange last week — one of the biggest such heists ever — are trying to move the stolen “XEM” coins, the foundation behind the digital currency said on Tuesday.

NEM Foundation, creators of the XEM cryptocurrency, have traced the stolen coins to an unidentified account, and the account owner had begun trying to move the coins onto six exchanges where they could then be sold, Jeff McDonald said.

Hackers made off with roughly $533 million worth of the cryptocurrency from Tokyo-based exchange Coincheck Inc late last week, raising fresh questions about security and regulatory protection in the booming market. The location of the hackers’ account was not known.

“(The hackers are) trying to spend them on multiple exchanges. We are contacting those exchanges,” Singapore-based McDonald told Reuters.

NEM Foundation spokeswoman Alexandra Tinsman said the hacker had started sending out “XEM” coins to random accounts in 100 XEM batches, worth about $83 each.

“When people look to launder these types of funds, they sometimes spread it into smaller transactions because it’s less likely to trigger (exchanges’) anti-money laundering (mechanisms),” said Tom Robinson, co-founder of Elliptic, a cryptocurrency security firm in London.

Robinson said such hopping among different cryptocurrencies was becoming more prevalent among cybercriminals trying to cover their tracks.

The coins that the hackers had taken made up around 5 percent of the total supply of XEM, the world’s 10th biggest cryptocurrency, according to trade website Coinmarketcap.

McDonald said the hackers were unlikely to try to spend anything close to all of the stolen cryptocurrency at once, because the “market simply couldn’t absorb that much.”

If the hackers successfully moved the coins to an exchange, they were likely to try to swap them into another cryptocurrency before transferring the coins back into a conventional currency, he said. That would make the funds difficult or near impossible to trace.

“I would assume that they are going to get away with some of the money,” McDonald said.

At least three dozen heists on cryptocurrency exchanges since 2011 are known; many of the hacked exchanges later shut down. More than 980,000 bitcoins have been stolen, and few have ever been recovered.

In 2014, Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, which once handled 80 percent of the world’s bitcoin trades, filed for bankruptcy after losing bitcoins worth around half a billion dollars — then the biggest ever such heist, which triggered a huge sell-off in bitcoin.

“It shows how far the industry has come that a hack of this scale isn’t really an issue,” said Robinson at Elliptic. “This is just kind of a blip.”

As of 17:44 GMT, XEM was trading at around $0.83 per coin, with a total market value of around $7.5 billion. That was around 20 percent lower than trading levels on Friday, when the hack was announced, but XEM is still up almost 300 percent over the past two months.

Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) on Monday ordered improvements to operations at Coincheck, which on Friday suspended trading in all cryptocurrencies except bitcoin.

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IMF Chief Says Middle Eastern Nations Must Broaden Tax Bases

Middle Eastern countries should pursue fiscal policies to support growth and build broader tax bases to fund infrastructure projects and social spending, the head of the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday.

“A key priority is building broader and more equitable tax bases. All must pay their fair share, while the poor must be protected,” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde told an economic conference in Marrakech, organized by the Washington-based fund and the kingdom.

That would allow them to spend more on social safety nets, health and education services than the current 11 percent of gross domestic product in the region. “Fiscal policy can and must be redesigned to support inclusive growth in the region,” Lagarde said.

More efforts are also needed to support the private sector, she said. The state, the dominant employer in many Arab countries with their young populations, can no longer hire newcomers to the labor market.

“This, too, can help make room for high-return social and infrastructure outlays,” Largarde said, adding that better access to finance, a more favorable business environment and fewer barriers such as red tape were necessary.

“Protracted regional conflicts, low commodity prices, weak productivity and poor governance have held back the considerable potential of the region,” the final statement issued by the IMF and two other international bodies said.

“Growth has not been strong enough to reduce unemployment significantly, and a staggering 25 percent of young people are jobless,” it added.

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Amazon Wades Into Health Care With Berkshire, JPMorgan

Amazon is diving into health care, teaming up with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and the New York bank JPMorgan Chase, to create a company that helps their U.S. employees find quality care “at a reasonable cost.”

The leaders of each company, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Buffett, and JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, offered few details Tuesday and said that the project is in the early planning stage.

“The ballooning costs of [health care] act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy,” Buffett said in a prepared statement. “Our group does not come to this problem with answers. But we also do not accept it as inevitable.”

The new company will be independent and “free from profit-making incentives and constraints.” The businesses said the new venture’s initial focus would be on technology that provides “simplified, high-quality and transparent” care.

It was not clear if the ultimate goal involves expanding the ambitious project beyond Amazon, Berkshire or JPMorgan. However, JPMorgan’s Dimon said Tuesday that, “our goal is to create solutions that benefit our U.S. employees, their families and, potentially, all Americans.”

Shares in health care companies took a big hit in early trading Tuesday, hinting at the threat of the new entity to how health care is paid for and delivered in the U.S.

Before the opening bell, eight of the top 10 decliners on the Standard & Poor’s 500 index were health care companies.

 The need for a solution to the health care crises in the U.S. is intense. With about 151 million non-elderly people, employer-sponsored coverage is the largest part of the U.S. health insurance market.

Health care costs for companies routinely rise faster than inflation and eat up bigger portions of their budgets. Americans are mired in a confusing system that creates a mix of prices in the same market for the same procedure or drug and offers no easy path for finding the best deal.

Employers have hiked deductibles and other expenses for employees and their families to dissipate the costs, which have hit Americans hard.

Only 50 percent of companies with three to 49 employees offered coverage last year, according to the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. That’s down from 66 percent more than a decade ago. The federal Affordable Care Act requires all companies with 50 or more full-time employees to offer it.

Amazon, Berkshire and JP Morgan say they can bring their scale and “complementary expertise” to what they describe as a long-term campaign.

Amazon’s entry into the health market has been perceived as imminent, even though the company had announced nothing publicly.

It has been watched very closely on Wall Street, which has seen Amazon disrupt numerous industries ranging from book stores to clothing chains.

Amazon, which mostly sold books when it was founded more than 20 years ago, has radically altered the way in which people buy diapers, toys or paper towels. Most recently it has upended the grocery sector, spending $14 billion last year for Whole Foods Market Inc.

AP writer Joseph Pisani contributed to this report from New York. Murphy reported from Indianapolis.

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As Trade Tensions Rise With US, China Prepares to Retaliate

As trade tensions grow between the United States and China, there is concern among foreign companies in China that a possible trade war between the two countries could leave them caught in the crossfire.

 

President Donald Trump has been ratcheting up trade pressure on China, and a senior administration official has said the U.S. leader would be “emphasizing the fair and reciprocal nature of trade” in his State of the Union speech Tuesday.

 

Already, Trump has issued what some believe could be the opening salvo in a more intense showdown over trade, recently slapping stiff import tariffs on solar panel imports and washing machines. More trade actions could be announced soon.

 

“If that does go forward, I have been told by certain officials [in China] that yes, definitely, there will be retaliation,” said William Zarit, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, or AmCham China. “And what we’ve been telling our interlocutors is that if there is some kind of tariff and if the Chinese do want to retaliate, they do so maturely and with precision so as to not actually adversely affect their own economy.”

 

Zarit spoke on Tuesday at the launch of AmCham China’s annual survey on the business climate in the world’s second-largest economy. The survey for 2017 was conducted at the time of Trump’s visit late last year and cited growing optimism among members about the outlook for growth and investment in China.

 

Seventy-eight percent of the respondents said that positive relations between the U.S. and China are extremely important or very important, compared with 64 percent in 2015.

Three out of every four companies surveyed, however, said they still feel unwelcome in China. One key driver of that perception – regulatory barriers for foreign companies and unfair treatment relative to local ones, the survey found.

 

While no one wants a trade war, the survey found that more than 60 percent are advocating for the U.S. government to take actions to help correct trade imbalances.

 

Zarit said some have grown weary of years of negotiations on trade and investment issues between the governments and think Washington should use pressure.

 

“Strictly just dialogue has not really brought much in terms of progress. So, perhaps some pressure will help get us more progress to a more balanced economic and commercial relationship,” he said.

 

Seeking ‘level playing field’

According to the survey, 27 percent of its business members “advocate more strongly for a level playing field” for U.S. businesses in China. Another 19 percent want the U.S. government to “apply investment reciprocity as an approach to improve market access in China.”

 

A third group comprising 14 percent of AmCham members wants Washington to pursue a new multilateral trade agreement that would include the U.S. replacing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP.

 

One of Trump’s first actions in office was to pull the United States out of the TPP, but last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he hinted at a possible path back toward the TPP or something similar to the trade agreement.

Lester Ross, head of AmCham China’s policy committee, said American companies should be ready to deal with harsh measures and other forms of retaliation from Beijing.

“I don’t think any company wants to absorb or make a sacrifice for trade relations, but I think some companies will inevitably suffer some repercussions if there are trade frictions between the two countries,” he said. “They [U.S. companies] have to consider that possibility.”

 

Ross said retaliation from the Chinese government could include measures targeting the airline and agriculture sectors, and possibly affecting industries and communities where support for Trump was strong during the elections.

 

“It would be likely that they [Chinese] will target sectors that have political resonance in the United States, and particular products or commodities,” he said.

Rising friction over trade is not the only way companies doing business in China could be caught in the middle.

 

As part of Trump’s efforts to exert more pressure on North Korea, he previously has complained that China is not doing enough and used the threat of possible trade actions as a carrot and stick to try to get Beijing to do more.

Some analysts said the Trump administration might go slowly on trade remedies against China if Beijing does more to help Washington in resolving the North Korea problem.

But that, in turn, could distract Washington from its plans to deal with what the U.S. sees as Beijing’s unfair trade practices.

Zarit said AmCham members also want the North Korea issue to be resolved as peacefully as possible.

 

“We also hope that our needs for addressing the structural imbalances in the relationship are not sacrificed in the process,” he said.

 

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Latino Civil Rights Site in Texas Named National Treasure

A Texas building connected to the Mexican-American Civil Rights movement has been designated as a National Treasure and will share part of a $450,000 grant in an effort to raise money for restore historic buildings damaged by last year’s hurricanes, the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced Tuesday.

The LULAC Council 60 Clubhouse in Houston, along with an historic doctor’s office in Miami and a nature preserve in Puerto Rico, will share the grant. All of the sites were damaged by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma or Maria.

The clubhouse served as a meeting place beginning in the 1950s for Mexican-American civil rights leaders who plotted out key school desegregation cases and efforts to fight discrimination. Legendary leaders such as attorneys Gus Garcia, John J. Herrera and Tex-Mex restaurateur Felix Tijerina attended meetings at the clubhouse.

The building sits in a revitalized area outside of Houston’s downtown. For years, advocates have been trying to raise money to fix the roof and interior of the building, which was damaged by Harvey and previous storms. LULAC — the acronym for the League of United Latin American Citizens — is the nation’s oldest Hispanic civil rights organization.

“The LULAC Clubhouse is not only an irreplaceable reminder that bold ideas often take shape in modest places, but also, that more needs to be done to learn from our nation’s collective civil rights contributions,” said Stephanie Meeks, the National Trust for Historic Preservation president and CEO.

The clubhouse was the site where activists planned President John J. Kennedy’s visit with LULAC held the night before his assassination. The group also created the “Little School of the 400,” an idea that would later become the federal Head Start program.

LULAC National President Roger Rocha said the designation would increase the group’s access to funds and help create a museum to preserve a part of Latino history.

“There’s a lot of history in that building,” Rocha said. “We can’t lose it.”

Advocates hope to raise at least $500,000 and in addition to a museum, restore it to serve as a meeting site once again, said Ray Valdez, LULAC Council 60 Clubhouse president.

With a National Treasure designation, the LULAC clubhouse joins such sites as the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., the White Grass dude ranch in Wyoming, and Joe Frazier’s Gym in Pennsylvania.

The $450,000 American Express grant for the three sites will help renovate the historic structures and prepare them to attract visitors, said Timothy McClimon, president of the American Express Foundation. In addition to the LULAC clubhouse, the historic Dr. James M. Jackson’s Office and Surgery in Miami, Florida, and various structures and landscapes within Paraíso Las Lunas — a nature preserve in Caguas, Puerto Rico — will receive grant money.

Jackson’s office was built in 1905 by Miami’s first resident physician and the building exemplifies neo-classical architecture in South Florida. It was damaged by Hurricane Irma. The Dade Heritage Trust will also use grant funds for roofing and carpentry repair at the Wagner Homestead, a mid-19th century structure and the oldest known house in Miami-Dade County, Florida.

The eye of Hurricane Maria passed directly over Las Lunas, damaging several buildings and uprooting many of the more than 51,000 trees previously planted there. The 19-acre Paraíso Las Lunas was the home and studio of renowned Mexican ceramic artist Toni Hambleton. The site is renowned for the variety of native Puerto Rican flora and fauna.

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Nutella Scuffles: France Investigates Discounts After Frenzy

French consumer fraud authorities are investigating a promotional campaign for Nutella that prompted scuffles in several supermarkets – and even a police intervention.

The Finance Ministry’s fraud agency said Tuesday it will examine whether the campaign by the Intermarche supermarket chain violated pricing regulations. An official with the agency would not give further details.

Intermarche drew big crowds at several stores last week after announcing sales of the chocolate and hazelnut spread for just 1.41 euros ($1.74), some 70 percent below the regular price.

Video circulated online of ensuing scuffles in some stores, drawing worldwide attention – and questions from authorities.

Nutella manufacturer Ferrero has distanced itself, saying Intermarche is entirely responsible.

The investigation comes as the government prepares to present a draft law this week aimed at stricter and clearer regulation for big retailers.

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