Month: January 2018

Prominent AIDS Crusader Mathilde Krim Dies at Age 91

Posted on by Cosc

Mathilde Krim, a prominent AIDS researcher who galvanized worldwide support in the early fight against the deadly disease, has died. She was 91.

 

Krim was founding chairman of The Foundation for AIDS Research, or amfAR. The nonprofit says she died at her home in King’s Point, New York, on Monday.

 

amfAR Chief Executive Officer Kevin Robert Frost says in a statement “so many people alive today literally owe their lives” to her.

 

Krim was a geneticist with experience in cancer research when AIDS first surfaced in the early 1980s. Over the next several decades, she mobilized a vast army of celebrities and others to help raise money and to lessen the disease’s stigma.

 

In 2000, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S.
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Gourmet Chocolate Becomes Economic Lifeline in Venezuela

Posted on by Coeco

In a modest apartment near a Caracas slum, nutrition professor Nancy Silva and four aids spread rich, dark Venezuelan cocoa on a stone counter to make chocolate bars to be sold in local shops that cater to the crisis-hit country’s dwindling elite.

Like some 20 recently launched Venezuelan businesses, Silva uses the country’s aromatic cocoa to make gourmet bars of the kind that can fetch more than $10 each in upscale shops in Paris or Tokyo.

The oil-rich but recession-devastated nation’s Byzantine bureaucracy makes large-scale exports nearly impossible for small businesses.

As a result, most of her bars are sold locally for less than one U.S. dollar – well out of reach of millions of Venezuelans who earn less than that in a week, but reasonably priced for the well-heeled of an increasingly two-tiered economy.

But entrepreneurs who have launched new Venezuelan chocolatiers in recent years say producing gourmet bars allows them to make a living amid the collapse of a socialist economic system – and dream of exports as a golden opportunity down the road.

“Our real oil is cocoa,” said Silva, owner of the chocolatier Kirikire that in 2014 won an award from the prestigious Salon du Chocolat fair in Paris. “In Europe, they’re snatching up these bars.”

Silva faces constant operational challenges due to hyperinflation and Soviet-style product shortages. But these are offset by steady access to high-quality aromatic cocoa from a cocoa farm in eastern Venezuela owned by her family.

Her bars are sold in high-end Caracas grocery stores, delis and liquor stores, where everything from staple products to luxury goods are amply available to the well-heeled – in contrast to the long lines and bare shelves of most shops.

Silva is now focused on getting her chocolate to France, where she once sold a single kilo of her chocolate for the equivalent of 80 euros ($96), which is today the equivalent of five years of minimum wage salary in Venezuela.

Standing in her way are a range of permits such as customs authorizations and sanitary inspections that take months in Venezuela’s notoriously inefficient bureaucracy.

The Information Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Venezuela was the world’s leading cocoa producer at the end of the 18th century when it was still a Spanish colony, according to Jose Franceschi, who has written books about cocoa and whose great-grandfather founded the Venezuela’s gourmet Franceschi chocolate brand.

But the cocoa trade was overshadowed by the rise of the oil industry in the early 20th century. Critics say it was further weakened by state takeovers under late President Hugo Chavez, who boosted state involvement in the economy as part of promises to create a society of equals.

But since the crash of oil markets, Venezuela has become a sharply divided society where oil engineers and public hospital doctors rarely make as much as $50 a month while a small group citizens with access to even modest amounts of hard currency can afford fine dining and gourmet products.

Bean to Bar

Output of 16,000 tons per year is less than 1 percent of the global total, and less than 10 percent of the production of regional heavyweights Brazil and Ecuador.

Many gourmet bars made in the United States now prominently advertise the use of Venezuelan cocoa but generally mix in other less-desirable cocoas. Bars made in Venezuela, in contrast, are made with 100 percent local cocoa.

This gives the new Venezuelan chocolatiers a leg up as they tap into the global ‘bean-to-bar’ movement, in which chocolate makers oversee the entire process of turning cocoa fruit into sellable treats.

On the second floor of an old mansion in Caracas, economist and chef Giovanni Conversi has been making specialty chocolate for two years under the name Mantuano.

Sprinkled with sea salt or aromatic fruits from the Amazon, the chocolate bars are a hit in London, Miami and Panama City in specialty chocolate stores or shops that specialize in Latin American food.

He and four assistants produce 9,000 bars a month in Caracas. He has opened a factory in Argentina that buys cocoa from small-scale producers like Yoffre Echarri, who two decades ago inherited his grandfather’s plantation in the beach town of Caruao.

He opens the fruit to remove the beans and the accompanying sweet white pulp, which has a strong aroma of tropical fruit and then ferments the mixture in plastic bags buried underground.

That process retains more aroma than the traditional method of fermenting in wooden boxes.

He sells the beans to Venezuelan chocolatiers for less than $1 per kilo, about half the international price.

“Clients can’t get enough. Those who three months ago were asking for five kilos now call for 50,” said Echarri.

Many small chocolatiers only manage to get products to foreign markets by carrying them in suitcases on commercial flights, though well-established brands such as El Rey have formal export operations to the United States and Europe.

In Japan, El Rey is represented by the food division Japanese trading house Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Still, some 1,700 people have recently studied artisanal chocolate at the Simon Bolivar University.

“Everyone wants to give it a shot,” said Rosa Spinosa, the head of the program created two years ago.

($1 = 0.8363 euros)
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El Salvador Eyes Work Scheme with Qatar for Migrants Facing Exit from US

Posted on by Coeco

El Salvador is discussing a deal with Qatar under which Salvadoran migrants facing the loss of their right to stay in the United States could live and work temporarily in the Middle Eastern country, the government of the Central American nation said on Tuesday.

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration said that as of September 2019, it would eliminate the temporary protected status, or TPS, that allows some 200,000 Salvadorans to live in the United States without fear of deportation.

Presidential communications chief Eugenio Chicas said El Salvador was in talks to see how Salvadorans could be employed in Qatar, a wealthy country of some 2.6 million people that is scheduled to host the soccer World Cup in 2022.

“The kingdom of Qatar … has held out the possibility of an agreement with El Salvador whereby Salvadoran workers could be brought across in phases (to Qatar),” Chicas told reporters.

After an unspecified period, the Salvadorans would return home, Chicas added, without saying how many workers the program could encompass.

El Salvador’s foreign minister, Hugo Martinez, is in Qatar until Friday and said in a statement that Salvadorans could work in engineering, aircraft maintenance, construction and agriculture.

Martinez also noted that Qatar had offered to provide health services to the Central American country, which is struggling with a weak economy and gang violence.
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Curling Heads to Olympics as World’s Fastest-growing Sport

Posted on by Corts

Curling, once a minority pastime played mostly by Scots and Canadians, will sweep onto the ice at next month’s Pyeongchang Olympics with the proud boast of being the world’s fastest-growing winter sport.

The “roaring game,” with its origins in the frozen ponds and mists of medieval Scotland, is now popping up in the sort of sunny places where ice usually comes in cubes to cool the drinks.

Qatar’s men’s curling team celebrated their first international victory last November, beating Kazakhstan on Australia’s sun-soaked Central Coast north of Sydney.

A few months earlier, Middle Eastern neighbors Saudi Arabia secured conditional membership of the World Curling Federation along with fellow-newcomers Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Portugal.

Las Vegas, in Nevada’s Mojave desert, will host the men’s world championship next April.

“You’d obviously think curling is for winter sport countries, it’s not really,” said Kate Caithness, the Scottish head of World Curling and one of only two female presidents of any Olympic sports. “You can have curling anywhere in the world.

“Give us a hall and we’ll make ice. We’ve got these new facilities where we can almost roll out a mat, plug it in, add water and freeze it,” she told Reuters from her headquarters in Perth, Scotland.

In order to be included on the full program at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, curling needed to have 30 member nations. Twenty years on and there are 60, with more to come and a growth explosion predicted.

“We’ve never been in better shape, actually,” said Caithness. “Mexico and Guyana are new members, and there’s other members in South America waiting to come on board.”

At the 2010 Games in Vancouver, curling was the most watched Winter Olympic sport on television in Brazil — a country that recently challenged Canada for a place at the men’s world championships.

There are no member nations from Africa as yet, but there has been interest with South Africa most likely to be the first on board.

Looking to Beijing

Curling is big in Korea and Japan, and the main growth areas over the next four years for a sport also known as “chess on ice” are likely to be China, host of the 2022 Olympics, and the United States.

“China is a huge, huge market for us,” Caithness said. “We’ve just signed a $13.4 million contract with a sponsor [Kingdomway Sports] in China for the next four years in the runup between now and 2022.”

Curling at those Beijing Winter Games will be held in the “Water Cube” facility that hosted swimming at the 2008 summer Olympics.

Transformed into the “Ice Cube,” the plan is to have a three sheet rink in the basement so that fans can watch the competition upstairs and try their hand at the sport downstairs.

“I’m on the 2022 IOC co-ordination commission, so I do have the inside information. I’ve been there already with the IOC,” Caithness said.

“They are going to put 300 million people through winter sport [in China] between now and 2022. … I understand they are building 500 new ice rinks. I think the sport’s going to explode.”

Sleeping giant

Starting this year, a new made-for-television World Cup will start up with four city events on three continents forming the “Road to Beijing.”

In the United States, USA Curling last year signed a sponsorship deal with Pepsico’s Frito-Lay brand Cheetos that features tight end Vernon Davis of the National Football League’s Washington Redskins.

As part of the promotion, the cheese curl snack has come up with a rap video “Teach me how to Curl” featuring curling moves and dance.

Even if Cheetos said in a statement that the deal aimed to “help raise awareness for one of America’s least participated in sports,” Caithness felt things were moving in the right direction.

“I think we’re going to see things go crazy in the United States. They’ve woken up at last,” she said.

Curling, whose tournament starts a day before the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang and runs right through to the last Sunday, can also expect more television coverage than any other sport.

To win a gold medal in men’s or women’s curling takes up to 33 hours on the field of play, with nine round robin games of three hours each followed by a semi-final and final. Pyeongchang sees the debut also of mixed doubles.

“We’ll have non-stop curling every day from dawn until dusk. We have huge TV coverage and this is really going to help our sport as well,” Caithness said.

Watch related VOA video story: 
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Mexican Car Sales Slump Ahead of Election

Posted on by Coeco

Car dealerships in Mexico City have kicked off the new year offering “clearance sales” and free insurance as 2017 models collect dust on their lots, a reminder that consumer nerves over high interest rates could slow the economy ahead of elections.

The first drop in auto sales in eight years is the most visible sign that the great Mexican shopper, the heart and soul of Latin America’s second-largest economy, is feeling the pinch of inflation at a 16½-year high and a battered peso.

A government decision to scrap fuel subsidies last year has made running a car more expensive, while the central bank’s battle with inflation has put car loans out of reach for many.

“If I’m going to buy a new car and then not be able to fill it up with gasoline, then it’s better to sit tight,” said Jaime Asrael, as he window-shopped outside a Chevrolet dealership in the central Guerrero neighborhood of the capital.

Beyond cars, consumer confidence is slipping more broadly. The consumer confidence index declined to 88.4 in December from 88.8 the previous month, the statistics agency said last week.

​Ruling party in trouble

This has worried government officials who are trying to persuade voters to re-elect the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in July. Experts doubt increased public spending in the campaign will be enough to boost confidence much in Mexico, where private consumption accounts for a whopping two-thirds of gross domestic product.

Leftist opposition candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has enjoyed a double-digit poll lead over his ruling-party rival in recent surveys.

“It certainly helps his case. The fact that we’ve seen this jump in inflation squeezing real incomes, that all [goes] into the mix,” said Neil Shearing, chief emerging markets economist at Capital Economics.

A blow such as an eventual collapse of talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement could make more consumers snap their wallets shut.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a more significant deceleration of private consumption” considering inflation’s impact on wages, tighter credit conditions, and NAFTA and election concerns, said Goldman Sachs economist Alberto Ramos.

“Instead of going on vacation for two weeks, they go one week. Instead of buying the automobile this year, they wait a little bit to see how things go. … That is serious in the sense that private consumption has been so far the main engine of growth,” said Ramos.

Domestic car sales in 2017 fell 4.6 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the Mexican Auto Industry Association. It was the first drop in annual auto sales since the global financial crisis of 2008-09.

​Inflation blamed

“Inflation is what hit us the most. And most people want to buy with credit, and financial institutions and banks weren’t able to cover the market,” said Jose Luis Salas, general manager at Grupo Surman, which runs 13 General Motors dealerships in the country.

“That’s what caused the drop in new car sales,” he added. 

Wider retail sales slowed to growth of 7.7 percent through November, not far above the 2017 inflation rate of 6.77 percent and below the average growth of some 10 percent the prior two years.

For years, stable prices compensated for Mexico’s sluggish economic growth, so accelerating inflation has caused outrage.

Sporadic looting broke out this month after reports that gasoline and food prices were about to be hiked, and angry posts filled social media, echoing unrest last year after the government liberalized fuel prices.

The central bank in November revised downward its 2017 economic growth forecast, blaming the NAFTA talks, the impact of storms and two major earthquakes in September, and a drop in domestic oil production to the lowest in more than 20 years.

It forecast economic growth of 1.8 percent to 2.3 percent in 2017 and 2 to 3 percent in 2018.

The bank, which in December hiked its key rate to a consumption-sapping, nearly nine-year high of 7.25 percent, said it expected a “nascent deceleration” in consumer spending. It is widely expected to raise rates again in February, according to bets in the interest rate swap market.
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Prince Photographer Afshin Shahidi Shares his Intimate Trove

Posted on by Corts

No assistants. No wardrobe or make up people. No lighting technicians.

That’s how Afshin Shahidi spent his most cherished moments with Prince over nearly a decade as his go-to photographer, and he included many of their more intimate encounters among 250 photos in his recent book, Prince: A Private View.

Shahidi, also known as black-ish and grown-ish actress Yara Shahidi’s dad, is a Minnesota son like the superstar. He sheds light only he could provide on Prince, who died in 2016 of an accidental drug overdose.

There was the time Prince made him tea after a photo session and the two sat and talked about Rembrandt. There was a goofy side, too, with Prince clowning in an empty airport hallway, then clicking into his trademark deadpan when outsiders materialized.

While much of Shahidi’s work captured Prince onstage or was intended for official use in tour books or fodder for his fans, it’s the quieter times that sustain the 48-year-old Shahidi.

A conversation with Afshin Shahidi:

AP: You grew up in Minneapolis and were still a kid when Prince hit it big. What was running through your mind when you first met him in person?

Shahidi: I was in junior high and high school when I became aware of Prince and he was a big departure from the kind of music that I was listening to and the things I was into. He was this gender-bending phenom who could play all these instruments. I was always a fan but I wasn’t a hardcore fan who would go to every show and knew every fact, so I jumped at the opportunity to meet him in ’93.

I was starstruck. It was the era when he had “slave” written across his face and everything about him was mysterious and amazing to me. I had moved back to Minneapolis after finishing college and I was trying to get into the film business. I was 23 and got a page asking for a film loader to work on a music video and they wouldn’t say who it was for. I didn’t know how to load film but I thought I had a few days to learn, so I said, yeah, I can do it and then they said, well we need you right now and it’s in Chanhassen. That’s where Paisley Park is so I knew it had to be for Prince. I said, OK, I’m on my way.    

​AP: Did you and Prince talk about you doing this book?

Shahidi: I had done two books with him prior to this and we had discussed a third. We did not discuss this book in particular and quite honestly it took me months to be able to even look at any of the images that I had. They brought back a lot of memories that I wasn’t ready for.   

After he passed, a lot of fans had started reaching out asking if there was anything I was going to do so I toyed with the idea. Once I could finally start looking at the pictures I started putting something together. It felt very therapeutic for me. I felt like it would be selfish to keep them to myself. I have thousands of images.

AP: Why did you stop working for Prince and what did you do during those early years?

Shahidi: I started in the capacity of a technician and slowly made my way up to being a cinematographer, photographer and more of a creative collaborator. The last time I photographed him was in 2011. We continued to stay in touch and he would call occasionally to see if I was available. A big part of stopping was my family and just keeping the schedule that was necessary to keep up with Prince, to travel internationally at a moment’s notice and all the late nights and that sort of thing.

The other part is that Prince also didn’t need as many images of himself as he did when I first started working with him because a lot of the images were being used for his online music club, which was a subscription-based thing — and he was one of the first artists to do that — so once he dismantled the music club, the need to constantly update diminished. 

AP: Was it difficult to gain his trust?

Shahidi: It was a very organic process. We built a mutual trust. He was very guarded and he was also very guarded with his image. To break through that and to then be able to capture a more authentic, less-posed Prince, where I could be in a room with him and he’s not on for the camera was pretty special and it took a little bit of time. Being on the road with someone for months at a time, you decide you really like someone a lot or you don’t like them at all. 

AP: He kept a photo of Yara on his desk at Paisley Park.

Shahidi: I didn’t really know about it until after he had passed and somebody messaged me about it. It still brings tears.

AP: How did you steal all those unguarded moments?

Shahidi: I tried to blend in. It was important for me to try and capture those. We would just be hanging out and I would pick up my camera and shoot. I think he enjoyed looking at them. 

AP: What do you think Prince got out of your friendship, not only with you but your wife and kids?

Shahidi: I think normalcy. We were just a normal Minnesota family. He enjoyed children. He liked their energy and creativity. That would put a smile on his face.

There’s a lot that still makes me sad about his passing. He’s one of the first friends that I’ve lost. He exercised regularly, he ate healthy. I never saw him abuse anything, not even alcohol. To me it was a big shock. I had hopes that Prince would honor me by coming to my funeral, not the other way around.
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Sculptor Kapoor Gives $1M ‘Jewish Nobel’ Prize to Refugee Effort

Posted on by Corts

British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor donated $1 million Wednesday to five charities working with refugees worldwide, in a bid to alleviate a record-breaking global displacement crisis.

Kapoor, who was born to an Indian father and Iraqi Jewish mother, won the Genesis Prize — dubbed the Jewish Nobel — last year for his commitment to Jewish values.

“Like many Jews, I do not have to go far back in my family history to find people who were refugees,” he said in a statement. “Directing Genesis Prize funds to this cause is a way of helping people who, like my forebears not too long before them, are fleeing persecution.”

The United Nations says the world is witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record, with more than 65 million people forced to flee their homes, surpassing numbers after World War II more than 70 years ago.

U.N. efforts to agree a voluntary pact on safe, orderly and regular migration suffered a setback in December when the United States quit the negotiations.

“In recent months, awareness of the plight faced by tens of millions of refugees and displaced persons worldwide has fallen significantly while the refugee crisis continues unabated,” said Kapoor, a longtime social activist.

Holocaust memorial

Kapoor, who lived in Israel briefly before settling in Britain in the 1970s, won the Turner Prize in 1991 and created a Holocaust memorial for London’s Liberal Jewish Synagogue.

Winners of the Genesis Prize, which is granted by the Israeli government, award $1 million to charities of their choice, with the aim of inspiring the next generation of Jews.

One of Kapoor’s grantees is the International Rescue Committee, which is working with refugees in Uganda — home to more than 1 million people who have fled war in South Sudan — and with stateless Rohingya in Myanmar.

He is also providing food for refugees in Greece and France and medical care for Syrian refugees.

Previous winners include former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and actor Michael Douglas. The 2018 winner, Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman, plans to focus her award funds on promoting women’s equality.
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21 States Sue to Keep Net Neutrality as Senate Democrats Reach 50 Votes

Posted on by Cobiz

A group of 21 U.S. state attorneys general filed suit to challenge the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to do away with net neutrality on Tuesday, while Democrats said they needed just one more vote in the Senate to repeal the FCC ruling.

The attorneys general filed a petition with a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., to challenge the action, calling it “arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion” and saying that it violated federal laws and regulations.

The petition was filed as Senate Democrats said they had the backing of 50 members of the 100-person chamber for repeal.

Senator Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a statement that all 49 Democrats in the upper chamber backed the repeal. Earlier this month, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine said she would back the effort to overturn the FCC’s move. Democrats need 51 votes to win any proposal in the Republican-controlled Senate because Vice President Mike Pence can break any tie.

Override would be difficult

Trump backed the FCC action, the White House said last month, and overturning a presidential veto requires a two-thirds vote of both chambers. A two-thirds vote would be much harder for Democrats in the House, where Republicans hold a greater majority.

States said the lawsuit was filed in an abundance of caution because, typically, a petition to challenge would not be filed until the rules legally take effect, which is expected later this year.

Internet advocacy group Free Press, the Open Technology Institute and Mozilla Corp. filed similar protective petitions Tuesday.

The FCC voted in December along party lines to reverse rules introduced in 2015 that barred internet service providers from blocking or throttling traffic or offering paid fast lanes, also known as paid prioritization.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the issue would be a major motivating factor for the young voters the party is courting.

A trade group representing major tech companies including Facebook, Alphabet and Amazon said it would support legal challenges to the reversal.

The FCC vote in December marked a victory for AT&T, Comcast and Verizon Communications and handed them power over what content consumers can access on the internet. It was the biggest win for FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in his sweeping effort to undo many telecommunications regulations.

Disclosure required

While the FCC order grants internet providers sweeping new powers, it does require public disclosure of any blocking practices. Internet providers have vowed not to change how consumers obtain online content.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, an Oregon Republican, said in an interview Tuesday that he planned to hold a hearing on paid prioritization. He has urged Democrats to work constructively on a legislative solution to net neutrality “to bring certainty and clarity going forward and ban behaviors like blocking and throttling.”

He said he did not believe a vote to overturn the FCC decision would get a majority in the U.S. House. Representative Mike Doyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said Tuesday that his bill to reverse the FCC decision had 80 co-sponsors.

Paid prioritization is part of American life, Walden said. “Where do you want to sit on the airplane? Where do you want to sit on Amtrak?” he said.
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French Startup Launches Hydrogen-powered Bicyles

Posted on by Cobiz

A French start-up has become the first company to start factory production of hydrogen-powered bicycles for use in corporate or municipal fleets.

Pragma Industries, which is based in Biarritz, France and makes fuel cells for military use, has sold some 60 hydrogen-powered bikes to French municipalities including Saint Lo, Cherbourg, Chambery and Bayonne.

At about 7,500 euros per bike, and at least 30,000 euros for a charging station, the bikes are too expensive for the consumer market, but Pragma is working to cut that to 5,000 euros, which would bring their price in line with premium electric bikes.

“Many others have made hydrogen bike prototypes, but we are the first to move to series production,” said founder and chief executive Pierre Forte.

The firm’s Alpha bike runs for about 100 km (62 miles) on a two-liter tank of hydrogen, a range similar to an electric bike, but a refill takes only minutes while e-bikes take hours to charge. One kilo of hydrogen holds about 600 times more energy than a one-kilo lithium battery.

Pragma also sells refueling stations that produce hydrogen through the electrolysis of water as well cheaper tank-based stations.

The bikes, which look and ride the same as any normal bicycle, are aimed at bike-rental operators, delivery companies, and municipal or corporate bicycle fleets with intensive usage.

Pragma, which produced 100 hydrogen bikes last year, plans to manufacture 150 this year. It has received demand from Norway, the United States, Spain, Italy and Germany, Forte said.

With bike’s range limited by the size of the hydrogen tank, Pragma is also working on a bike that will convert plain water into hydrogen aboard the bike, using a chemical reaction between water and aluminum or magnesium powder to produce hydrogen gas.

“In the next two-three years we want to enter the consumer market and massively increase the scale of our operations,” said Forte.
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Sweden Already Schooling Future Winter Olympians

Posted on by Corts

Next month’s Winter Olympics is the immediate focus for Sweden but the country is already training its next generation of winter sports athletes in special high school programs that combine sports and education for ambitious teenagers.

At the Jamtlands Gymnaisum high school in Ostersund, some 550 kilometers (340 miles )north of Stockholm, promising young skiers and biathletes are put through their paces four mornings a week by highly-qualified coaches at a local ski stadium.

They return to school at lunchtime, piling their plates high with pasta and salad in the cafeteria before heading to the classroom to catch up on their studies.

And when they are done in the classroom, they head back to the gym to work on their strength and conditioning before finishing their homework and heading for bed at the end of a long day.

It sounds like a gruelling schedule, but for those taking part it is a dream way to spend their school years.

“It’s very important, it feels like this is my life,” Julia Albertsson, a budding cross-country skier, told Reuters after strapping on her skis for her morning training session.

“You feel like you’re not just a person, you’re a cross-country skier. Right now it’s the most important thing,” she said before setting off at a blistering pace under the watchful eyes of coach David Engstrom.

Application period

“Eventually, we want them to reach the elite. It’s a very long way, and this is just the start of that long road,” Engstrom said as the skiers raced away.

“We’ve just completed an application period, and I’d say we take in around eight (athletes) every year. It’s up to themselves how good they can be.

“They decide the level of ambition, and how much time they put into training and everything else they need to become really good.”

Albertsson and the cross-country students train alongside the school’s biathletes, who are coached by Jean-Marc Chabloz, a four-time Olympian from Switzerland who has made his home in the area.

“We have good clubs in the area who work with young people, so we have them served up to us on a silver platter,” Chabloz said as he gave the teenagers shooting tips.

Despite his own Olympic history, where he took part in the Games in Albertville, Lillehammer, Nagano and Salt Lake City, the 50-year-old said it was not essential for him that the athletes go on to compete at the Games, or in the World Cup.

“I wouldn’t say that’s what drives me as a coach, it’s more about creating a platform so that they can move on in their sporting lives, or in something else. But obviously it’s great when they succeed in sport,” he explained.

School sporting director Michael Soderkvist and his team of teachers and coaches look after the student athletes, making sure they stay focussed on their studies as well as their dreams of representing Sweden at a future Olympics.

“The goal is to give students a chance to get an education, and in combination to see how far you can get with your sporting talent,” Soderkvist said.

Wrestling with maths

Back in the classroom, some of the student athletes wrestle with mathematics while those with no lessons scheduled sit on sofas in common areas, catching up on schoolwork or talking through the competitions they took part in at the weekend.

Aside from winter sports, the school offers a number of other pursuits such as soccer, basketball and fencing.

The local soccer club in Ostersund, which the school is in regular contact with, is set to meet Premier League giants Arsenal in the last 32 of the Europa League in February.

For Soderkvist, Sweden’s long-held tradition of making both sport and education accessible to all is the secret behind the success of the programs offered by similar schools, where there are no tuition or coaching fees.

“If we compare it to the States, where most of the sports are in college or schools or the private market, it’s very much different here. Because of this culture with no-profit clubs, many people can afford to do sport.” Soderkvist said.

The school is one of many with such programs all over Sweden, and every year dozens of athletes from the age of 16 and upwards apply to attend.

The handful of chosen athletes aim to follow in the footsteps of Charlotte Kalla, who had a similar high school education before going on to win multiple Olympic gold medals, and will head to Pyeongchang as one of the country’s brightest medal hopes.

Julia Albertsson is typical of the well-mannered, conscientious teenagers attending the school, and though she could never be described as cocky or arrogant, the 17-year-old is crystal clear about her burning ambition to emulate Kalla.

“You work successively, year after year, to be better, and in the end you want to get to the Olympics,” she said.
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Lifelike Robots Made in Hong Kong Meant to Win Over Humans 

Posted on by Cobiz

David Hanson envisions a future in which robots powered by artificial intelligence evolve to become “super-intelligent genius machines” that might help solve some of mankind’s most challenging problems.

If only it were as simple as that.

The Texas-born former sculptor at Walt Disney Imagineering and his Hong Kong-based startup Hanson Robotics are combining AI with southern China’s expertise in toy design, electronics and manufacturing to craft humanoid “social robots” with faces designed to be lifelike and appealing enough to win trust from humans who interact with them.

Hanson, 49, is perhaps best known as the creator of Sophia, a talk show-going robot partly modeled on Audrey Hepburn that he calls his “masterpiece.”

Akin to an animated mannequin, she seems as much a product of his background in theatrics as an example of advanced technology.

‘Is it weird?’

“You’re talking to me right now, which is very ‘Blade Runner,’ no?” Sophia said during a recent visit to Hanson Robotics’ headquarters in a suburban Hong Kong science park, its home since shortly after Hanson relocated here in 2013.

“Do you ever look around you and think, ‘Wow, I’m living in a real-world science fiction novel’?” she asked. “Is it weird to be talking to a robot right now?”

Hanson Robotics has made about a dozen copies of Sophia, who like any human is a work in progress. A multinational team of scientists and engineers are fine-tuning her appearance and the algorithms that enable her to smile, blink and refine her understanding and communication.

Sophia has moving 3-D-printed arms and, with the help of a South Korean robotics company, she’s now going mobile. Shuffling slowly on boxy black legs, Sophia made her walking debut in Las Vegas last week at the CES electronics trade show.

Her skin is made of a nanotech material that Hanson invented and dubbed “Frubber,” short for flesh-rubber, that has a fleshlike, bouncy texture. Cameras in her eyes and a 3-D sensor in her chest help her to “see,” while the processor that serves as her brain combines facial and speech recognition, natural language processing, speech synthesis and a motion control system.

​Sophia’s predecessors

Sophia seems friendly and engaging, despite the unnatural pauses and cadence in her speech. Her predecessors include an Albert Einstein, complete with bushy mustache and white thatch of hair; a robot named Alice whose grimaces run a gamut of emotions; and one that eerily resembles the late sci-fi author Philip K. Dick, which won an award from the American Association of Artificial Intelligence. They variously leer, blink, smile and even crack jokes.

Disney’s venture capital arm is an investor in Hanson, which is building a robot based on one of the entertainment giant’s characters.

An artist and robotics scientist, Hanson worked on animatronic theme park shows, sculpting props and characters for Disney attractions like Pooh’s Hunny Hunt and Mermaid Lagoon. He studied film, animation and video, eventually earning a doctorate in interactive arts and technology from the University of Texas at Dallas.

Hanson says he makes his robots as humanlike as possible to help alleviate fears about robots, artificial intelligence and automation.

That runs contrary to a tendency in the industry to use cute robo-pets or overtly machinelike robots like Star Wars’ R2-D2 to avoid the “uncanny valley” problem with human likenesses such as wax models and robots that many people find a bit creepy.

Global market revenue for service robotics is forecast to grow from $3.7 billion in 2015 to $15 billion in 2020, according to IHS Markit. That includes both professional and domestic machines like warehouse automatons, smart vacuums and fuzzy companion robots.

Hanson Robotics is privately owned and has a consumer-oriented business that sells thousands of shoebox-sized $200 Professor Einstein educational robots a year. Chief Marketing Officer Jeanne Lim says the company is generating revenue but won’t say whether it’s profitable.

Specific chores

For now, artificial intelligence is best at doing specific tasks. It’s another thing entirely for machines to learn a new ability, generalize that knowledge and apply it in different contexts, partly because of the massive amount of computing power needed to process such information so quickly.

“We’re really very far from the kind of AI and robotics that you see in movies like Blade Runner,” said Pascale Fung, an engineering professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

Unlike toddlers, who use all five senses to learn quickly, machines generally can handle only one type of input at a time, she noted.

While Sophia’s repartee can be entertaining, she’s easily thrown off topic and her replies, based on open-source software, sometimes miss the mark.

Hanson and other members of his team, like chief scientist Ben Goertzel, have set their sights on a time when the computer chips, processing capacity and other technologies needed for artificial general intelligence could enable Sophia and other robots to fill a variety of uses, such as helping with therapy for autistic children, caring for seniors or providing customer services.

As for tackling challenging world problems, that’s a ways off, Hanson acknowledges.

“There’s a certain expression of genius to be able to get up and cross the room and pour yourself a cup of coffee, and robots and AI have not achieved that level of intelligence reliably,” Hanson said.
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Growing Number of Actors Renounce Woody Allen

Posted on by Corts

A growing number of actors are distancing themselves from Woody Allen and his next film, heightening questions about the future of the prolific 82-year-old filmmaker in a Hollywood newly sensitive to allegations of sexual misconduct.

Timothee Chalamet on Tuesday said he will donate his salary for an upcoming Woody Allen film to three charities fighting sexual harassment and abuse: Time’s Up, the LGBT Center in New York and RAINN. The breakout star of Call Me By Your Name announced on Instagram that he didn’t want to profit from his work on Allen’s A Rainy Day in New York, which wrapped shooting in the fall.

“I want to be worthy of standing shoulder to shoulder with the brave artists who are fighting for all people to be treated with the respect and dignity they deserve,” Chalamet said.

Chalamet is just the latest cast member of an Allen production to express regret or guilt about being professionally associated with the director. In recent weeks, Rebecca Hall (A Rainy Day in New York, Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite), Ellen Page (To Rome With Love), David Krumholtz (Wonder Wheel) and Griffith Newman (A Rainy Day in New York) have all in some way distanced themselves from Allen or vowed that they wouldn’t work with him again.

The rising chorus suggests the road ahead for Allen may be particularly challenging, even for a director whose personal controversies have for decades made him an alternatively beloved and reviled figure in movies. Financial support for the filmmaker has not previously waned in part because of the eagerness many stars have for working with a cinematic legend. But fielding a starry cast may prove increasingly difficult for Allen in a movie industry in the midst of a #MeToo reckoning. 

“If I had known then what I know now, I would not have acted in the film,” Greta Gerwig, who co-starred in Allen’s 2012 comedy To Rome With Love, told The New York Times last week. “I have not worked for him again, and I will not work for him again. Dylan Farrow’s two different pieces made me realize that I increased another woman’s pain, and I was heartbroken by that realization.”

Dylan Farrow, Allen’s adopted daughter, has said Allen molested her in an attic in 1992 when she was seven. Allen, who has long denied the allegations, was investigated for the incident but not charged.

Farrow has previously questioned why the #MeToo movement hasn’t ensnarled Allen. In an op-ed published last month in The Los Angeles Times, she wrote: “Why is it that Harvey Weinstein and other accused celebrities have been cast out by Hollywood, while Allen recently secured a multimillion-dollar distribution deal with Amazon, greenlit by former Amazon Studios executive Roy Price before he was suspended over sexual misconduct allegations?”

Price, the former head of Amazon Studios, resigned in October following an allegation that he had sexually harassed television producer Isa Hackett while she was working on the Amazon series The Man in the High Castle.

A Rainy Day in New York is the fourth project for Allen with Amazon, which bet heavily on the filmmaker to help establish its film production arm as a home to auteur filmmakers. It reportedly spent $80 million to lure Allen into television to make the 2016 series Crisis in Six Scenes.

Amazon, which didn’t respond to queries Tuesday, also distributed Allen’s Cafe Society in 2016 and Wonder Wheel, which opened December 1. It has grossed a mere $1.4 million domestically on an estimated budget of $25 million but had more success overseas, grossing $7.8 million.

A Rainy Day in New York, a romantic comedy due out sometime this year, also stars Selena Gomez, Jude Law, Liev Schreiber and Elle Fanning. In his statement, Chalamet tellingly noted that due to “contractual obligations” he couldn’t comment on the long-standing allegations against Allen.

The announcement by Chalamet, a favorite Oscar contender for best actor this year, followed a similar one Friday by his co-star Hall. She said she was donating her salary from the film to Time’s Up, the recently formed initiative to combat gender inequality in the entertainment industry. “It’s a small gesture and not one intended as close to compensation,” Hall wrote on Instagram.

Some have continued to publicly support Allen, though, including Alec Baldwin.

“Woody Allen was investigated forensically by two states (NY and CT) and no charges were filed,” Baldwin said Tuesday on Twitter. “The renunciation of him and his work, no doubt, has some purpose. But it’s unfair and sad to me. I worked with Woody Allen three times and it was one of the privileges of my career.”
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Researchers: More Green Power Could Lessen India’s Water, Electricity Problems

Posted on by Cobiz

Water shortages have disrupted India’s power plants for years and are likely to worsen as power demands grow and climate change brings more frequent droughts — a reality that is adding urgency to government plans to boost use of renewable energy, analysts said.

Most of India’s energy comes from fossil-fuel-powered thermal power plants that rely on fresh water for cooling.

Fourteen of the country’s 20 largest thermal power utility companies experienced disruptions related to water shortages at least once between 2013 and 2016, losing more than $1.4 billion in potential revenue, the World Resources Institute (WRI) said in a report Tuesday.

“Water shortages are a threat to power companies in India,” said Tianyi Luo, co-author of the WRI report. “As India is expected to grow significantly in the next 20 to 30 years, the water competition is only going to be more severe.”

India is expanding its power supplies to meet the demands of a growing economy, which is set to double by 2030, according to Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

The country also needs to extend power to an estimated 300 million people currently living without electricity.

Climate change, which is expected to cause more frequent and intense droughts and change rainfall patterns, will most likely put additional stress on water supplies, Luo said.

Less water, more power?

In a bid to address the problem, the government has introduced rules to curb the amount of water used by power stations.

But to effectively keep water consumption from India’s fossil fuel power generation in check, the country needs to meet its own ambitious renewable energy goals and implement its stringent water regulations on power plants, WRI said.

“We don’t know how much water those power plants are using exactly on a daily basis. Unless you start to monitor and disclose this type of information, it’s hard to get a sense of what kinds of risks you are exposed to,” said Luo.

The government’s plans to meet India’s growing energy needs include building more power plants that run on coal, ramping up its nuclear power capacity — and investing heavily in solar and, to a lesser extent, wind power.

Although growing use of solar power will to a large extent reduce reliance on water for power generation, it can still put a strain on water supplies in the arid areas where some major solar plants have been built, said Karthik Ganesan, a research fellow at the Delhi-based Council on Energy, Environment and Water.

Even the small amount of water needed to clean dust off solar panels, for example, “is a significant demand” in extremely arid areas, Ganesan told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “So it doesn’t mean that the issue [of water shortages] dies out completely. It takes a different form.”

Many entrepreneurs and companies are looking at building solar installations and wind turbines on the same pieces of land, as the wind often picks up when the sun sets. Wind power also requires little or no water.

“I think the private sector will find what the right mix is,” Ganesan said.

By 2022, India is expected to more than double its current renewable electricity capacity, according to the International Energy Agency.

The government has decided to scale back some of its plans to build new coal-fired power plants, partly because the cost of renewables has dropped significantly in the last decade, said Niklas Höhne, a climate emissions expert at the Germany-based NewClimate Institute, which tracks countries’ emission reduction policies.

“India is a country where changes are the fastest compared to most other countries. [It’s gone] from building more coal-fired power plants to building a lot of renewable energy,” Höhne said.
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World’s Largest Sea Turtle Could Come Off US ‘Endangered’ List

Posted on by Cosc

Federal ocean managers say it might be time to move the East Coast population of the world’s largest turtle from the United States’ list of endangered animals.

An arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has received a petition from a fishing group asking that the Northwest Atlantic Ocean’s leatherback sea turtles be listed as “threatened,” but not endangered, under the Endangered Species Act. The giant reptiles, which can weigh 2,000 pounds, would remain protected under federal law, but their status would be moved down a notch.

NOAA officials have said the agency has reviewed the petition from New Jersey-based Blue Water Fishermen’s Association and found “substantial scientific and commercial information” that the move might be warranted. The agency now has about eight months to make a decision about the status of the turtles.

Leatherbacks live all over the world’s oceans and have been listed as endangered by the U.S. since 1970. Deciding whether the listing should be changed will require determining the stability of the population, said Jennifer Schultz, a fisheries biologist with NOAA Fisheries.

“We’ll look at scientific papers, we look at the best available scientific and commercial data,” she said. “And then we’ll say, `What does the status look like? How are they doing?”‘

The fishing group that requested the change wants the Northwestern Atlantic’s leatherback population to be considered a distinct segment of the population. That segment would include all of the leatherbacks that nest on beaches in the eastern U.S. states. But NOAA Fisheries is going to look at the status of the turtles worldwide, said Angela Somma, chief of endangered species division with NOAA Fisheries.

Blue Water Fishermen’s Association requested the change of listing in part to spur new research into the status of the leatherback population, said Ernie Panacek, a past president of the organization. Data about species such as sea turtles and marine mammals play a role in crafting fishing regulations, and fishermen fear the government is using outdated data about leatherbacks, he said.

“I get a little frustrated in the fact that they are making regulations without scientific data in front of them,” he said. “The more turtles there are, the more interactions you are bound to have with them.”

The leatherback sea turtle has been the subject of intense interest from conservation groups over the years. It’s listing as endangered by the U.S. predates the modern Endangered Species Act that was enacted in 1973. The Costa Rica-based Leatherback Trust, an international nonprofit group, describes them as “ancient creatures celebrated in creation myths belonging to diverse cultures around the world.”

International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the leatherback sea turtle as “vulnerable,” which is one notch above “endangered” on the IUCN’s scale. It’s one of the largest reptiles on Earth, feeding mostly on jellyfish, which has left them at risk to plastic in the ocean, which can kill them if they ingest it. They are also notable for being the deepest diving and most migratory of all sea turtles, and for their lack of a bony shell.

NOAA is collecting information and comments on the subject until February 5.
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Infants in War-torn Yemen Dying at Alarmingly High Rate

Posted on by Cosc

A report by the U.N. children’s fund finds babies born in war-torn Yemen are dying at an alarmingly high rate because of the collapsing health system, lack of food and clean water. 

The U.N. children’s fund reports more than three million children have been born in Yemen since the country’s civil war escalated in March 2015.  The agency’s report, called “Born into War”, describes the violent, hopeless situation of displacement, disease, poverty and hunger into which these children are born.

UNICEF says most of the estimated 3,000 babies born every day are delivered outside a health center, with no skilled birth attendant present.  It reports 40 percent of the births are premature and 30 percent suffer from low birth weight.  Most worrying of all, it notes, is 25 percent of the newborns die within their first month because of infections and a variety of deprivations.

UNICEF spokesman Christophe Boulierac says undernutrition plays a big role in those deaths.  He says around 1.8 million children are acutely malnourished and about 400,000 are severely, acutely malnourished.

“A child who is suffering from severe acute malnutrition is nine times more likely to die than a child who is correctly nourished,” said Boulierac. “So, these children are in danger.” 

The report finds at least 5,000 children have been killed or maimed in the violence.  That means an average of five children have lost their lives or been injured every day since the Saudi-led coalition began bombing Houthi rebels in support of the Yemeni government nearly three years ago.  

UNICEF says more than 11 million children, nearly every child in Yemen, needs humanitarian assistance to survive.  And, those who do survive, it says, are likely to carry the physical and psychological scars of the brutal conflict for the rest of their lives.  

 
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Clean Energy Investment Rose to $333.5B in 2017, Research Shows

Posted on by Cobiz

New clean energy investment worldwide rose by 3 percent last year to $333.5 billion from a year earlier, driven by a surge in solar photovoltaic (PV) installations, research showed on Tuesday.

The figure is below 2015’s record amount of $360.3 billion, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) said in an annual report.

Solar investment totaled $160.8 billion in 2017, up 18 percent from the previous year even though technology costs have fallen. Just over half of that was spent in China, the research showed.

“The 2017 total is all the more remarkable when you consider that capital costs for the leading technology — solar — continue to fall sharply. Typical utility-scale PV systems were about 25 percent cheaper per megawatt last year than they were two years earlier,” said Jon Moore, the chief executive of BNEF.

Chinese investment in clean energy as a whole totaled $132.6 billion last year, up 24 percent from a year earlier to a record high.

Europe invested $57.4 billion, down 26 percent from the previous year, and the United States invested $56.9 billion, up 1 percent on 2016.

Meanwhile, $127.9 billion changed hands last year — the highest amount ever — as organizations purchased and sold clean energy projects and companies and refinanced existing project debt.

Private equity buy-outs reached a record high of $15.8 billion, six times higher than the previous year. The largest acquisition transaction of 2017 was Brookfield Asset Management’s purchase of a stake in U.S. TerraForm Power for $4.7 billion, the report said.
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WHO: All of Sao Paulo State at Risk for Yellow Fever

Posted on by Cosc

The World Health Organization has added all of Sao Paulo state to its list of areas at risk for yellow fever.

That puts the megacity of Sao Paulo on the list and means that the organization is recommending that all international visitors to the state be vaccinated.

Tuesday’s announcement comes as an outbreak is gathering steam in Brazil ahead of Carnival, a major draw for foreign tourists. The WHO says 11 human cases have been confirmed through last week and hundreds more found in monkeys.

Much of Brazil is considered at risk for yellow fever, but the coast was largely considered safe. Last year, however, Brazil saw an unusually large outbreak of the disease, including in areas not previously at risk. In response, Brazil rushed to vaccinate millions of people.
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Japan City Uses Emergency System to Recall Blowfish Packages

Posted on by Cosc

A city in central Japan used its emergency loudspeaker system in an attempt to recall four packages of blowfish meat after discovering a fifth one contained the potentially deadly liver.

No one has died. The fish, known as fugu, is an expensive winter delicacy but requires a license to prepare because of the dangers of mishandling. The fugu’s liver is mostly toxic and banned.

Regional health officials said Tuesday a supermarket in Gamagori sold five packages of assorted blowfish meat on Monday. The inclusion of the liver in the package could have contaminated the other meat with the fugu poison.

Health authorities found that the store had been selling the liver of the particular kind of blowfish, called “yorito fugu,” or blunthead puffer, for years because it’s nearly non-toxic, health ministry official Yohei Ohashi said. No health problems have been reported from past consumption of the liver sold at the store, he said.

The illegal sales surfaced Monday when a buyer of one package took it to a health center. With four other packages sold but unaccounted for, city officials alerted residents via the emergency loudspeakers normally used for earthquakes and other disasters. Two packages have since been returned.

The health ministry ordered the store to recall all the blowfish packages and suspend their sale, but the store told officials that it will no longer sell blowfish, Ohashi said.
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Olympic Champ Simone Biles Says She was Abused by Doctor

Posted on by Corts

Simone Biles watched as her friends and former Olympic teammates came forward to detail abuse at the hands of a now-imprisoned former USA Gymnastics team doctor.

Drawing in part from their strength, the four-time gold medalist acknowledged Monday she is among the athletes who were sexually abused by Larry Nassar.

Biles, who won five medals overall at the 2016 Olympics, released a statement via Twitter outlining that abuse. Nassar, who spent more than two decades as a physician at USA Gymnastics while also working at Michigan State University, has admitted sexually assaulting gymnasts, possessing child pornography and molesting girls who sought medical treatment. He was sentenced in December to 60 years in federal prison for possessing child pornography and is facing another 40 to 125 years in prison after pleading guilty to assaulting seven girls.

Biles, now 20, called Nassar’s behavior “completely unacceptable, disgusting, and abusive, especially from someone whom I was told to trust.” She joins a list of high-profile gymnasts who have come out against Nassar, including six-time Olympic medalist Aly Raisman, 2012 all-around champion Gabby Douglas and two-time Olympic medalist McKayla Maroney.

Like her Olympic teammates, Biles detailed abuse by Nassar that he disguised as treatment.

“It is not normal to receive any type of treatment from a trusted team physician and refer to it horrifyingly as the ‘special’ treatment,” Biles wrote.

Biles is in the beginning stages of a return to competition, a journey that includes visits to the national team’s training center at the Karolyi Ranch north of Houston, where she said the abuse occurred.

“It is impossibly difficult to relive these experiences and it breaks my heart even more to think that as I work towards my dream of competing in Tokyo 2020, I will have to continually return to the same training facility where I was abused,” Biles wrote.

USA Gymnastics initially agreed to buy the Karolyi Ranch in the summer of August 2016, following the retirement of longtime national team coordinator Martha Karolyi, but then backed out of the deal. The national team continues to use the facility while options for a replacement are explored.

Biles says she initially wondered if she was to blame.

“For too long I’ve asked myself, ‘Was I too naive? Was it may fault?”’ Biles wrote. “I now know the answer to those questions. No. No. It was not my fault. No, I will not and should not carry the guilt that belongs to Larry Nassar, USAG, and others.”

USA Gymnastics said in a statement it is “heartbroken, sorry and angry” that Biles and other athletes were harmed by Nassar.

“USA Gymnastics’ support is unwavering for Simone and all athletes who courageously came forward to share their experiences,” the organization said in a release. “We are our athletes’ advocates. USA Gymnastics will continue to listen to our athletes and our members in our efforts of creating a culture of empowerment with a relentless focus on athlete safety every single day.”

The organization has taken several steps in recent months. President and CEO Steve Penny resigned under pressure last March and was replaced by Kerry Perry, who took over on Dec. 1.

The organization hired Toby Stark, a child welfare advocate, as its director of SafeSport last summer. Part of Stark’s mandate is educating members on rules, educational programs and reporting. The federation also adopted over 70 recommendations by Deborah Daniels, a former federal prosecutor who oversaw an extensive independent review.

That’s not far enough for some. Raisman has urged the organization to remove chairman of the board Paul Parilla among others. Biles, like Raisman, wants USA Gymnastics to take a deeper look at the conditions that allowed Nassar’s behavior to run unchecked for so long.

“We need to know why this was able to take place for so long and to so many of us,” Biles said. “We need to make sure something like this never happens again.”
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US Net Neutrality Move May Lead to Trade War with Chinese Internet Firms

Posted on by Cobiz

A recent decision by the United States’ Federal Communications Commission to repeal net neutrality, which are rules designed to prevent the selective blocking or slowing of websites, has wide-ranging implications for China, which never believed in net neutrality and banned hundreds of foreign websites. The decision could result in a major trade war involving Chinese telecom and Internet companies, which are interested in accessing the U.S. market, analysts said.

The move will allow American telecom service providers to charge differential prices for various services and even examine the data of their customers. Though this aspect has stirred controversy in the United States, the situation there is still very different from the realities in China.

“In China, the government is monitoring and controlling the networks whereas [in U.S.] it is, at least so far, it is telecommunication companies. At this point, the government does not have access, we know it does not have access to manipulating the flow of traffic in the U.S. Internet,” Aija Leiponen, a professor at Cornell University’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, said.

The FCC decision could help U.S. telecom service providers offer high-priced premium services.

Trade war

But this would also open up an opportunity for U.S. service providers to charge high rates from foreign customers. At present, foreign companies can easily access the U.S. cyber market without facing the kind of resistance American companies encounter in China and elsewhere.

“I think it (FCC decision) has an impact potentially for Chinese technology companies that want to do business in the U.S.,” said Benjamin Cavender, a senior analyst at the Shanghai-based China Market Research Group (CMR). “You are asking about companies like Alibaba or Tencent, what this means for them in the U.S. markets– and I could very possibly see this being used as a trade war tool–and the U.S. government saying, ‘Look, we are going to restrict access to companies to our ISPs and force them to pay a lot of money.”

U.S. telecom companies are getting increasing integrated with content providers and might look at foreign players as a source of serious competition. They might go further and even consider blocking some foreign players, including Chinese Internet giants, he said.

“I can also see this happening that they (Chinese Internet firms) just get completely blocked because of the U.S. using this more as a trade tool trying to get more access to the Chinese market because if you are a U.S. technology company you are working at a great disadvantage in the Chinese market. I do see this being used as a trade tool,” Cavender said.

The point is about applying pressure on China to open up its Internet market to American players in exchange for similar treatment in the United States. Washington has usually avoided this kind of tit-for-tat game, but the situation may be changing under the Trump administration, analysts said.

“They (U.S. telecom companies) could at some point say, ‘Look, if you want to have confidential, fast access to the U.S. you have to kind of allow us to do the same thing, allow us to invest more heavily in Chinese firms.’ I could see that happening,” Cavender said.

Moral high ground

China has been advocating the idea of ‘Internet sovereignty,’ which allows governments to create boundaries in cyber space and block foreign sites that it perceives as potential threats to security. Proponents of ‘open Internet’ have been protesting against the idea of ‘Internet sovereignty.’

The Obama administration lobbied and argued with China for nearly a decade to open up Internet access for American companies like YouTube, Twitter and Netflix. It was an important aspect of the annual strategic economic dialogue between the two countries.

The FCC decision coupled with the controversy over alleged cyber spying by Russia is a moral boost of support for China’s online restrictions, which include a ban on major sites like Google, YouTube and Twitter. The moral high ground enjoyed by the United States under the past administration may be at risk, analysts said.

“Even democracies are beginning to think about the need to regulate content. So the Chinese, you know, might take a little comfort in that,” James Lewis, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said. “When you look at Europeans talking about blocking each other’s content, when you look at the U.S. talking about blocking Russian political warfare, the Internet cannot be the wild west that it’s been for a couple of decades. So, everyone’s moving in this direction and I guess the Chinese can take comfort from that.”

Meanwhile, Chinese experts are protesting a new bill introduced in the U.S. Congress that would prevent branches of the U.S. government from working with service providers that use any equipment from two Chinese companies, Huawei and ZTE, for security reasons.

“This (prejudice towards Chinese companies) seems like a problem that can’t be solved, at least not in the short term,” Liu Xingliang, head of the Data Center of China Internet, told the Global Times newspaper in Beijing.

At the same time, “Chinese firms can’t give up the U.S. market and just focus on smaller countries if they want to really achieve their global goals,” Liu Dingding, an independent tech expert told the paper.
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New Tech Reads Sealed Ancient Documents Without Opening Them

Posted on by Cobiz

Attempting to open sealed age-old books and documents without damaging them is difficult. Now scientists in Switzerland have perfected an X-Ray technique to read the fragile records without even touching them. VOA’s Deborah Block explains how.
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Island Off Coast of Scotland Birthplace to Every Curling Stone in 2018 Winter

Posted on by Corts

20-kilogram ((19.96kg)) granite stones shuffled across ice and aimed for a bull’s-eye. That’s the basic gist of the team sport of curling. A privately owned island off the coast of Scotland is birthplace to every curling stone to be used at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea Feb.9th – Feb. 25. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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