The path to sharper vision has gone from glasses to contact lenses to laser correction… and now, to eye drops. Faith Lapidus has details of the latest development.
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Month: April 2018
Commission on Fragile States Says Paradigm Shift Needed to Stabilize Poor Countries
A new report by Britain’s Growth and Development Commission offered a mix of both good and bad news for poor countries: some of the countries in the report have achieved middle income status, and places once plagued by conflict and instability have shown signs of improvement. But the report also notes that the number of people living in what it calls “fragile states” is growing. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo takes a look at the commissions findings.
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China Tech Firms Pledge to End Sexist Job Ads
Chinese tech firms pledged on Monday to tackle gender bias in recruitment after a rights group said they routinely favored male candidates, luring applicants with the promise of working with “beautiful girls” in job advertisements.
A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report found that major technology companies including Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent had widely used “gender discriminatory job advertisements,” which said men were preferred or specifically barred women applicants.
Some ads promised candidates they would work with “beautiful girls” and “goddesses,” HRW said in a report based on an analysis of 36,000 job posts between 2013 and 2018.
Tencent, which runs China’s most popular messenger app WeChat, apologized for the ads after the HRW report was published on Monday.
“We are sorry they occurred and we will take swift action to ensure they do not happen again,” a Tencent spokesman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
E-commerce giant Alibaba, founded by billionaire Jack Ma, vowed to conduct stricter reviews to ensure its job ads followed workplace equality principles, but refused to say whether the ads singled out in the report were still being used.
“Our track record of not just hiring but promoting women in leadership positions speaks for itself,” said a spokeswoman.
Baidu, the Chinese equivalent of search engine Google, meanwhile said the postings were “isolated instances.”
HRW urged Chinese authorities to take action to end discriminatory hiring practices.
Its report also found nearly one in five ads for Chinese government jobs this year were “men only” or “men preferred.”
“Sexist job ads pander to the antiquated stereotypes that persist within Chinese companies,” HRW China director Sophie Richardson said in a statement.
“These companies pride themselves on being forces of modernity and progress, yet they fall back on such recruitment strategies, which shows how deeply entrenched discrimination against women remains in China,” she added.
China was ranked 100 out of 144 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2017 Gender Gap Report, after it said the country’s progress towards gender parity has slowed.
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Luxury Fashion Brands Criticized Over Supply Chain Slavery Risk
Luxury fashion houses Dior, Chanel and Dolce & Gabbana are among the least transparent of the major retailers when it comes to providing information about their supply chains, according to an index ranking commitments to tackle slavery and forced labor.
The index, released on Monday by advocacy group Fashion Revolution, coincided with the fifth anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh, where 1,135 garment workers were killed and more than 2,000 were injured.
The collapse of the eight-story building on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka on April 24, 2013 sparked demands for better safety in the world’s second-largest exporter of ready-made garments.
“We want to see the fashion industry respect its producers … to foster dignity, empowerment and justice for the people who make our clothes,” said Orsola de Castro, co-founder of Fashion Revolution.
Sportswear giant Adidas and its subsidiary Reebok topped this year’s Fashion Transparency Index, followed by another sporting label Puma and Swedish fashion group H&M.
While many brands indicated a greater willingness to be transparent about their supply chains, the report said more was needed.
None of the 150 retailers scored higher than 60 out of 100, the index said, which assessed factors like company policies, supply chain transparency, and their commitment to improve conditions for factory workers.
“Greater transparency means greater scrutiny and accountability. It means exploitation has fewer places to hide,” said Peter McAllister, head of the Ethical Trading Initiative, a global group that aims to improve labour conditions for workers.
“Unfortunately, many businesses are yet to even start their journey, and for these companies we hope the report will be a much-needed wake up call. They can and must do better,” he said in a statement.
Some of the lowest-ranking firms – including Dior, Dolce & Gabbana and Max Mara, all of which scored zero points on the index, and Chanel and Longchamp, which scored three points apiece – did not respond to requests for comment.
Spanish brand Desigual, which also scored zero points, said all of its suppliers must comply with its code of conduct, which will be published online in the coming weeks.
Suppliers that breach the code are “disqualified to work with Desigual immediately and permanently,” a spokeswoman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an emailed statement.
In the wake of the Rana Plaza disaster, nearly 200 clothing brands and retailers from over 20 countries became signatories to the legally-binding Bangladesh Accord.
Accord inspectors have carried out inspections of more than 1,800 factories, identifying over 118,500 fire, electrical and structural hazards, unions said.
“Textile workers across the world are producing our clothes in some of the most dire conditions,” said Danielle McMullan, a researcher at the Business and Human Rights Resource Center, a U.K.-based rights group. “Transparency from brands is a crucial step to improve standards and protect workers.”
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Banderas Plays Picasso, a Complex Hometown Hero, in ‘Genius’
Antonio Banderas, who shares his birthplace with Pablo Picasso, decided it finally was time to portray his hometown hero. But he leaves it to viewers of National Geographic’s drama series “Genius: Picasso” to reconcile the artist’s revelatory work with his treatment of the women who helped inspire it.
The actor had passed on two other chances to play Picasso, intimidated by the prospect of playing the man he calls a “huge figure” from their shared birthplace of Malaga, Spain. Learning more about the titan of 20th-century painting, who died in 1973 at age 91, made the mature Banderas cautious for other reasons.
“I started realizing he was not just complicated but mysterious, because of what he did as an artist and because of his life. There were so many opinions of him, some of them good and some bad, his behavior with art and with women and his friends,” Banderas said.
But he was impressed by the first season of “Genius” from executive producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, with Geoffrey Rush playing Albert Einstein, and decided this was the time to take Picasso’s complex story and paintbrushes in hand, literally.
“I wanted to be familiar with all the tools, brushes and oils and acrylics and everything. I bought canvasses and starting painting” to prepare for the role, he said, although he counts himself only a dedicated novice.
Howard said he had no reservations that Banderas the actor, if not painter, was up to the task in the 10-part series that debuted at 9 p.m. EDT Tuesday.
“It took us a while to settle on Picasso as the next ‘Genius,’ but once we did Antonio’s name was immediately thrown into the mix, and everyone agreed he would be perfect for the role,” Howard said. “He put in an incredible amount of work to bring the artist to life on-screen and I think he has delivered an exceptional performance that we’re all very proud of.”
A convincingly prosthetics-aged Banderas plays Picasso in his later years, with Alex Rich as the youthful artist. Those co-starring as Picasso’s lovers and muses are Samantha Colley as photographer Dora Maar; Poppy Delevingne as Marie-Therese Walter, and Clemence Poesy as the artist Francoise Gilot, now 96, who left him after a decade and two children.
It was Gilot who, in her 1964 memoir, quoted Picasso as saying, “For me, there are only two kinds of women — goddesses and doormats.” A Paris Review column about a 2017 exhibition of Picasso artwork and memorabilia related to his daughter Maya (born to mistress Walter during his marriage to first wife Olga Khokhlova) was headlined: “How Picasso Bled the Women in His Life for Art.”
Picasso married second wife Jacqueline Roque when he was 79 and she was 27, and they remained together until his death, with Roque his inspiration for that prolific final period. Banderas said that much of Picasso’s work was deeply intertwined with the women who shared his life.
“When he was upset with Dora Maar, for example, you could tell how he painted her. He kind of made her a monster,” he said. “Without those women around him, the pieces of Picasso, it would be a completely different story.”
His relationships didn’t always start or stop cleanly, the actor said, and there was “something of them that always was kept in the soul of Picasso.”
The artist’s colleagues had reason to be wary of his brilliance: They would hide their own works from him because they knew he could improve on whatever style he saw, Banderas said. There is also a cloudy chapter in which Picasso refuses to sign a petition to save French poet Max Jacob (played by T.R. Knight) from a Nazi internment camp, claiming it would hurt his close friend’s cause. Jacob died in the camp in 1944.
How an artist’s conduct influences the perception of his art, or its acceptance, has particular currency, with the careers of some top creative lights derailed or sullied by a range of alleged sexual misconduct. In Picasso’s case, women were willing partners and research uncovered no evidence of physical abuse, said Banderas.
But there was betrayal and abandonment.
“I don’t think the goal of the show is to celebrate someone,” executive producer Ken Biller told TV critics. “The goal of the show is to explore a very complex, complicated individual and all of the people around him. This is the stuff of drama. We are not sugarcoating Picasso.”
How did Banderas weigh Picasso’s genius against his character?
“I don’t want to be the morality judge, because that can be difficult to do. We can do that from our time. But if we go back in time, how can you do that for a man born in 1881,” Banderas said. “The audience has the opportunity to go in one direction or another as we tell the story. But me, as an interpreter, I shouldn’t do it. I shouldn’t do it.”
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Michigan Water Activist, 6 Others Win Environmental Prize
A woman who played a key role in exposing the lead-tainted water disaster in Flint, Michigan, is among seven people from around the world to be awarded a Goldman Environmental Prize for grassroots environmental activism.
LeeAnne Walters was repeatedly rebuffed by Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration, even as she confronted regulators with bottles of brown water that came from her kitchen tap. Finally, with critical help from a Virginia Tech research team and a local doctor, it was revealed in 2015 that Flint’s water system was contaminated with lead due to a lack of treatment.
Walters, a mother of four, “worked tirelessly behind the scenes to bring justice to not only her immediate family but all residents of Flint,” the Goldman Environmental Foundation said Monday in announcing this year’s winners.
The prize was created in 1989 by the late San Francisco philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman. Winners are selected from nominations made by environmental organizations and others. The prize carries a $200,000 award.
In Flint, thousands of home water lines are being replaced due to the lead crisis. The city’s water quality has improved since it stopped using the Flint River as its source after 18 months, although there are many concerns about lead that was ingested, especially by children.
The other winners are:
Francia Marquez of Colombia, who rallied other women to vigorously oppose gold mining in the Cauca region.
Claire Nouvian of France, who successfully campaigned against deep-sea fish trawling.
Makoma Lekalakala and Liz McDaid of South Africa, who fought to stop a nuclear plant deal between their country and Russia.
Manny Calonzo of the Philippines, who led an effort to ban lead paint.
Khanh Nguy Thi of Vietnam, who used scientific research to discourage dependency on coal-fired power.
Cyprus Regains Rare Orthodox Christian Mosaic Stolen in 70s
A rare 6th century mosaic depicting the St. Andrew that was taken from a looted church in the Cyprus’ breakaway north has been returned after four decades, the head of the island nation’s Orthodox Christian Church said Monday.
Archbishop Chrysostomos II said that the artistry that went into the mosaic coupled with its rarity made the work a symbol of Cyprus’ “stolen heritage.”
It is among only a handful of mosaics to have survived a period during the 8th and 9th centuries when many Orthodox icons were destroyed.
The mosaic showing a bearded St. Andrew — among Christ’s first Apostles — was one of several that went missing from the Church of Panayia Kanakaria after Cyprus split into ethnic Greek and Turkish sides in 1974.
A Turkish art dealer, Aydin Dikmen, was arrested a quarter-century later for selling that piece and others from Kanakaria Church, as well as artworks from other churches.
Most of the Kanakaria Church mosaics have now been repatriated with the exception of one of St. Luke.
London-based Greek Cypriot art dealer Maria Paphiti located the St. Andrew mosaic in 2014 after another dealer asked her to verify the origin. When the dealer was informed that the mosaic belonged to the Cyprus Church, he agreed to return it as long as his expenses were covered.
Paphiti reached out to Greek Cypriot businessmen Roys Poyiadjis and Andreas Pittas for help covering the cost of the mosaic’s repatriation, which came to 50,000 euros ($61,200.)
Archbishop Chrysostomos honored the three of them Monday during a ceremony at Cyprus Church headquarters.
Cyprus hosts a second mosaic of the same rarity and time period depicting the Virgin Mary. A third resides in the Orthodox monastery of Saint Catherine at the foot of Mount Sinai.
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New NASA Boss Gets ‘Hearty Congratulations’ From Space
NASA’s new boss is already getting cheers from space.
Immediately after being sworn into office Monday by Vice President Mike Pence, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine took a call from the three U.S. astronauts at the International Space Station who offered “hearty congratulations.” The Oklahoma congressman became the 13th administrator of NASA, filling a position that had been vacant for more than a year.
“America loves what you guys are doing,” Bridenstine, a former naval aviator, told the astronauts. He promised to do his best “as we reach for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind.”
This is the 60th anniversary year for NASA .
Bridenstine is the first elected official to lead NASA, something that had bogged down his nomination last year by President Donald Trump. The Senate approved his nomination last week by a narrow vote of 50-49. Monday’s swearing-in ceremony took place at NASA headquarters in Washington.
Pence noted that the space agency, under Bridenstine’s direction, will work to get astronauts back to the moon and then, with help from commercial space and international partners, on to Mars.
“NASA will lead the way,” said Pence, who heads the newly resurrected National Space Council.
Charles Bolden Jr., a former space shuttle commander and major general in the Marines, was NASA’s last official administrator. The space agency was led by Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot in the interim. Lightfoot retires from NASA at the end of this month.
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Zimbabwe Nurses Return to Work After Strike
Around 16,000 nurses in Zimbabwe resumed work Monday, bringing to an end one week of strikes that affected health services in the country.
Zimbabwe’s health ministry said the situation had “returned to normal” in all hospitals.
“The majority of nurses dismissed have applied for re-engagement, and the government has permitted them to resume duty, pending final approval from the employer,” the health ministry public relations office in Harare said Monday.
Strike lasts week
The nurses went on strike a week ago to press demands for improved allowances and an irregular salary grading system, its union said.
Many of Zimbabwe’s nurses operate in poorly equipped state-run institutions, and patients are expected to supply basics such as drugs and equipment.
Since taking charge of Zimbabwe late last year, President Emmerson Mnangagwa has vowed to improve the beleaguered economy and seek foreign investment to improve public services.
Nurses offer free treatment
The nurses were fired last week by Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, who said they refused to go back to work after $17 million was released to improve their pay.
Hundreds of the nurses offered free treatment to the public in the country’s parliament to protest their dismissal Friday.
Zimbabwe’s government said at the time that the decision would not be reversed and ordered heads of hospitals to recruit new nurses to replace those who were sacked.
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China’s Didi Chuxing Launches Ride Service in Mexico
Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing on Monday began offering its service in the Mexican city of Toluca, the company said, setting up a potentially costly battle with rival Uber Technologies in a key Latin American market.
The Mexican launch marks the first time Didi has brought its own app-based ride service outside of Asia, a critical global expansion that comes as the company faces increased competition at home from internet giant Meituan-Dianping, which recently launched its own ride-hailing service.
Didi Express has launched in the capital city of the State of Mexico, an urban hub about 40 miles (60 km) west of Mexico City, adding a number of new safety features for drivers and riders.
Reuters was first to report Didi’s plans for Toluca earlier this month.
In Mexico, Didi will go up against Uber, its chief international rival, for the first time since Uber’s launch in China that ended with a merger of the two companies’ operations in 2016. Uber is the ride-hailing leader in Mexico, where it has 7 million users in more than three dozen cities.
Didi, which has an operations hub in the Juarez neighborhood in Mexico City, said it hopes to bring its ride-hailing service to other major Mexican cities later this year.
Didi said teams in Mexico, Beijing and California studied the Mexican market to adapt Didi’s algorithms and other ride-service technologies for the local market, addressing issues such as crime.
Didi is bringing to Mexico a number of new safety features, including an emergency alert button in the app that will connect drivers and passengers with police and other emergency contacts if they find themselves in danger, a safety monitoring system and a way for passengers to share their ride itinerary.
The company started recruiting drivers early this month, promising not to take any piece of their fares until June 17.
After mid-June, Didi plans to take a 20 percent cut, below Uber’s 25 percent commission, Reuters previously reported.
Didi late last year bought Brazilian ride-hailing firm 99, giving the company its first toehold in Latin America.
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Sources: Arrested Chevron Workers Could Face Treason Charge in Venezuela
Two Chevron Corp. employees detained in Venezuela last week could be charged with treason for refusing to sign a parts contract for a joint venture with state-owned oil company PDVSA, according to two sources familiar with draft charges against the U.S. firm’s executives.
The arrests, by national intelligence agents, marked the first at a Western oil firm in Venezuela and represent a dramatic escalation of growing tensions between PDVSA and foreign companies over control of supply contracts, the sources told Reuters.
The widening dispute could worsen operational chaos that has caused the OPEC nation’s oil output to plunge by 23 percent, or 450,000 barrels per day, since October.
“These detentions are going to accelerate the operational crisis,” another source with knowledge of Chevron’s operations told Reuters. “Procurement could end up in paralysis if nobody wants to take the risk of signing or authorizing anything.”
The draft treason charges – seen by Chevron lawyers last week, the two sources said – raised concern that the oil major could get caught in the crossfire between Washington and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who accuses the U.S. government of sabotaging the economy to topple his administration. The United States has imposed sanctions on senior members of Maduro’s government and PDVSA.
The two Chevron employees were jailed when they refused to sign a supply contract written by PDVSA executives under an emergency decree – which skips the competitive bidding process, according to a half dozen sources close to the case. Such decrees have been cited by Venezuela prosecutors as a means of extracting bribes in some recent PDVSA corruption cases.
The Chevron employees balked when the parts were listed at more than double their market price in a contract worth several million dollars, one of the sources told Reuters. The workers oversaw operations and procurement at Petropiar, an oil upgrading project co-owned by PDVSA and Chevron to transform Orinoco Belt’s extra heavy crude into an exportable product.
Venezuela’s national intelligence service, Sebin, arrested the Chevron workers, Carlos Algarra and Rene Vasquez, in front of stunned co-workers in a raid of Chevron’s office in Puerto La Cruz and the upgrader on April 16.
Venezuelan authorities have yet to comment on the arrest of the men, both Venezuelans, and no charges against them have been made public.
The Venezuela public prosecutor’s office declined to comment, and PDVSA did not respond to several requests for comment.
The arrests follow a purge that has seen more than 80 executives at PDVSA and its suppliers jailed for alleged corruption as the state firm’s new chief, Major General Manuel Quevedo, has sought to stamp his authority on the sector – the financial lifeblood of Venezuela’s unraveling socialist government.
Tensions between PDVSA and foreign oil companies have steadily risen since Quevedo took charge in November and appointed military officers who had little or no oil industry experience to senior jobs.
Foreign firms have pushed for a greater say in procurement to combat inefficiencies and graft, oil industry sources said, but disputes over governance standards have caused operational delays, raising tensions over Venezuela’s falling oil output.
In February, the Petropiar upgrader had been temporarily halted because of problems scheduling its exports, and PDVSA executives were concerned it could be forced to stop again due to lack of spare parts, one of the sources said.
When the imported furnace parts did not arrive on time, PDVSA executives blamed the Chevron employees for the delays, according to the two sources familiar with the draft charges.
The men are being represented by Chevron lawyers. The charges against them have not been formalized and could change, the two sources said.
A spokesman for Chevron declined to comment.
Venezuela defines treason as conspiring with foreign enemies against the state and proscribes punishment of up to 30 years in prison. Defendants are not entitled to due process protections afforded to those accused of other crimes, according to the statute.
As of Sunday, the two men were being held in the offices of the intelligence services in the coastal city of Barcelona, according to the two sources with knowledge of the draft charges.
Caught in the Crossfire
The detentions highlight the growing difficulties for foreign oil firms amid a deepening economic crisis in Venezuela, allegations of rampant corruption, a power struggle within PDVSA and an increasingly authoritarian government.
Reuters reported earlier this month that Maduro had granted extra powers to Quevedo to “create, annul or modify” deals involving state energy company PDVSA and its subsidiaries.
Foreign oil firms, at a meeting in Caracas this month to discuss how to tackle production problems at joint ventures, expressed their concerns over procurement and governance to Quevedo, according to documents seen by Reuters.
PDVSA has a minimum 60 percent stake in joint ventures and has been slow to share operational control, despite large-scale staff resignations in recent months.
About 25,000 PDVSA workers resigned between the start of January 2017 and the end of January 2018, out of a workforce last officially reported at 146,000, Reuters reported last week.
The resignations – including high-level professionals that are now almost impossible to replace – have only accelerated since Quevedo arrived, two dozen industry sources told Reuters.
Oil majors such as Chevron and Eni SpA, Total SA and Repsol SA still operate in Venezuela, home to the world’s largest oil reserves. Although no foreign workers have been detained in the purge of the sector until last week, some companies have previously withdrawn expatriate workers over security concerns.
Many foreign workers’ families are reluctant to stay in Venezuela for long periods, one executive from a company operating in the Orinoco Belt told Reuters.
“We no longer have any guarantee that expatriates will not be sent to jail,” the executive said.
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US Soldier Gets World’s First Penis and Scrotum Transplant
A young military veteran who had his genitals blown off in a blast in Afghanistan has received the world’s most extensive penis transplant.
Surgeons at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, rebuilt the man’s entire pelvic region — transplanting a penis, scrotum and part of the abdominal wall from a deceased donor — in a highly experimental 14-hour operation.
Doctors said Monday he is recovering well and is expected to leave the hospital this week.
The patient, who asked to remain anonymous, is expected to recover urinary and eventually, sexual function.
The scrotum transplant did not include the donor’s testicles, meaning reproduction won’t be possible.
“We just felt there were too many unanswered ethical questions” with that extra step, said Hopkins’ Dr. Damon Cooney.
Three other successful penis transplants have been reported, two in South Africa and one in 2016 at Massachusetts General Hospital. Those transplants involved only the penis and not extensive surrounding tissue that made this transplant much more complex.
The Hopkins patient received an extra experimental step — an infusion of bone marrow from his donor that research suggests may help a recipient’s immune system better tolerate a transplant. Surgeons said this treatment enables the veteran to take one anti-rejection drug instead of several.
A statement from Hopkins included a quote from the patient, saying, “When I first woke up, I felt finally more normal.”
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Facebook Says It is Taking Down More Material About ISIS, al-Qaida
Facebook said on Monday that it removed or put a warning label on 1.9 million pieces of extremist content related to ISIS or al-Qaida in the first three months of the year, or about double the amount from the previous quarter.
Facebook, the world’s largest social media network, also published its internal definition of “terrorism” for the first time, as part of an effort to be more open about internal company operations.
The European Union has been putting pressure on Facebook and its tech industry competitors to remove extremist content more rapidly or face legislation forcing them to do so, and the sector has increased efforts to demonstrate progress.
Of the 1.9 million pieces of extremist content, the “vast majority” was removed and a small portion received a warning label because it was shared for informational or counter-extremist purposes, Facebook said in a post on a
corporate blog.
Facebook uses automated software such as image matching to detect some extremist material. The median time required for takedowns was less than one minute in the first quarter of the year, the company said.
Facebook, which bans terrorists from its network, has not previously said what its definition encompasses.
The company said it defines terrorism as: “Any non-governmental organization that engages in premeditated acts of violence against persons or property to intimidate a civilian population, government, or international organization in order to achieve a political, religious, or ideological aim.”
The definition is “agnostic to ideology,” the company said, including such varied groups as religious extremists, white supremacists and militant environmentalists.
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Scientists: California Risks Severe ‘Whiplash’ From Drought to Flood
California will suffer more volatile weather this century with a “whiplash” from drought to rain and mounting risks a repeat of the devastating “Great Flood” of 1862, scientists said on Monday.
Climate change, driven by man-made greenhouse gas emissions, would drive more extreme shifts between hot and dry summers and wet winters in the most populous U.S. state, they wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Global warming is making California and other regions with similar Mediterranean-style climates, from southern Europe to parts of Australia, drier and warmer in summer, said lead author Daniel Swain of the University of California, Los Angeles.
In California in winter “an opposing trend toward a strong Pacific jet stream is projected to locally enhance precipitation during the core months of the ‘rainy season,'” he told Reuters.
“Natural precipitation variability in this region is already large, and projected future whiplash increases would amplify existing swings between dry and wet years,” the authors wrote.
They projected “a 25 percent to 100 percent increase in extreme dry-to-wet precipitation events” this century.
California had its worst drought in recorded history from 2010—2016, followed by severe rains and flooding that culminated with evacuation orders for almost 200,000 residents as a precaution near the Oroville Dam last year.
The study said major urban centers, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, were “more likely than not” to suffer a freak series of storms by 2060 similar to ones in 1861-62 that led to the “Great Flood.”
The storms swamped the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, flooding an area 300 miles (500 km) long and 20 miles wide.
Storms washed away bridges, inundated mines and wrecked farms.
A repeat “would probably lead to considerable loss of life and economic damages approaching a trillion dollars,” the study said.
As part of planning, Swain said the state should expand use of floodplains that can be deliberately flooded to soak up rains, such as the Yolo Bypass which protects the city of Sacramento.
The study assumes, however, that global greenhouse gas emissions will keep rising, at odds with the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement under which almost 200 nations agreed to cut emissions to net zero between 2050 and 2100.
“Such a future can be partially, but not completely, avoided” if the world takes tougher action, Swain said. He noted that existing government pledges to limit warming fall well short of the Paris goals.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who doubts mainstream findings that greenhouse gas emissions are the main cause of warming, plans to quit the deal, saying he wants to promote the U.S. fossil fuel industry.
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EU Seeks to Join China-US Steel Dispute at WTO
The European Union asked on Monday to join a dispute brought by China to the World Trade Organization over U.S. import tariffs on steel and aluminum, just over a week before U.S. President Trump decides whether they should apply to Europe.
The U.S. administration has set duties of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum on grounds of national security, but provided a temporary exemption until May 1 for the European Union.
China has taken the United States to the WTO over the measures. The first step in the WTO process involves consultations.
The WTO said on Monday that the European Union had made a formal request to join the consultations as a party with a significant trade interest in the matter.
The EU noted, according to the WTO, that its interest was substantial because if the exemption ended then the U.S. measures would hit EU exports.
Hong Kong, India, Russia and Thailand have all filed requests to join the consultations. The EU is the first of the parties granted an exemption to seek to join the dispute.
Canada, Mexico, Australia, Argentina, Brazil and South Korea also received temporary exemptions. South Korea’s has since been extended indefinitely.
The European Commission, which coordinates trade policy for the 28-member EU, said that the bloc wanted to be granted a permanent exemption without conditions.
Separately on Monday, India, Russia, Norway, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey and Venezuela joined China in expressing their concerns or disappointment at the U.S. metals tariffs.
A European Commission source said it was normal for the EU to seek to observe consultations and be able to submit its own views if it had a substantial interest and considered the WTO as the appropriate forum to settle disputes.
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UAE to Fund $50.4M Project to Rebuild Mosul’s Grand Al-Nuri Mosque
The United Arab Emirates will finance a $50.4 million project to rebuild Mosul’s Grand al-Nuri Mosque, famous for its eight-century-old leaning minaret, that was blown up by Islamic State militants last year, the United Nations said Monday.
Reconstruction and restoration of the mosque and al-Hadba minaret will be in partnership with the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, Iraq’s culture ministry and the International Center for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), Dubai’s media office said in a Twitter post.
Islamic State demolished the Grand al-Nuri Mosque, which dated to the 12th century, in the final weeks of the U.S.-backed Iraqi campaign that ousted the jihadists from Mosul, their de facto capital in Iraq, last July.
The protracted and fierce urban warfare largely reduced the historic landmarks of Iraq’s second city to rubble.
Paris-based UNESCO said the project would take at least five years, with the first 12 months focused on clearing districts of debris. Other sites including historic gardens will be rebuilt, and the plan includes the building of a memorial and museum.
Mosul needs at least $2 billion of reconstruction aid, which would unblock streets and rebuild destroyed homes among other things, according to Iraqi government estimates. About 700,000 of Mosul’s population, estimated at 2 million before Islamic State seized the city in 2014, is displaced.
It was from the medieval mosque in mid-2014 that Islamic State’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a self-styled “caliphate” spanning parts of Syria and Iraq that the jihadists had overrun in a shock offensive.
The mosque was named after Nuruddin al Zanki, a noble who fought the early crusaders from a fiefdom that covered territory in modern-day Turkey, Syria and Iraq. It was built in 1172-73, shortly before his death, and housed an Islamic school.
By the time renowned mediaeval traveler and scholar Ibn Battuta visited two centuries later, the minaret was leaning.
The tilt gave the landmark its popular name — the Hunchback.
The minaret was composed of seven bands of decorative brickwork in complex geometric patterns that have also been found in Iran and Central Asia.
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Q&A: Mel Brooks Still Loves Movies, Just Not Streaming Them
Mel Brooks is just two months shy of his 92nd birthday and he still carves out time for movie nights with his pal Carl Reiner. The two just recently got together to watch a restoration of the 1938 Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland classic “The Adventures of Robin Hood.”
Classic film and proper presentation are important to the legendary comedian and filmmaker, especially in the age of streaming. This week, Brooks will be on hand to kick off the ninth annual TCM Classic Film Festival at the TCL Chinese Theater Thursday night in Hollywood with a special screening of the first film he ever directed: “The Producers.”
Brooks spoke to The Associated Press about the film, streaming and even “The Last Jedi.” Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.
AP: Congratulations on this new restoration of “The Producers.”
BROOKS: I’m very thrilled. TCM, these are people I really admire and I love them and God bless them for keeping all the movies that I grew up with still alive, still available. I don’t think anybody else does it, or does it as well. When they said they wanted to open their festival with the 50th anniversary of “The Producers,” I got very excited.
AP: The film has only grown in esteem too. Why do you think it’s endured?
BROOKS: Oh it’s very simple and it sounds a little egotistical, but it’s because it’s very good. The only test — real test — it’s not critics. It’s never critics. The only test is whether a movie is still around after 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years and in this case 50 years. So, you know, I know, it must be a good movie or no one would care about it 50 years later.
AP: And Martin Scorsese will be there on opening night too to get the Robert Osborne Award.
BROOKS: He was gracious enough to give me my lifetime achievement trophy at the American Film Institute. I love Marty Scorsese. As a matter of fact, this is a true story, when I was in pre-production on “The Producers,” this is a true story and he will never admit it but he and Harvey Keitel were two little ragamuffins who for some reason followed me around when we were in pre-production 50 years ago. I think they were putting together a movie called “Mean Streets” or something. It was pretty weird. But I really admire him. I admire not only his outrageous talent, “Raging Bull” is magnificent, but I admire his love and dedication to the art of movies. He’s really one of the great moviemakers of our time.
AP: Like Scorsese, you also have an encyclopedic knowledge of cinema.
BROOKS: Yeah well I’m old, that’s the secret. The secret is I’ve lived a long time. There’s a lot of people who love film. I’ve been around, so there isn’t a movie you could name that either I or Carl Reiner couldn’t give you a chapter or verse on.
AP: Do you keep up with current movies? Do you get out to the theater or watch them at home?
BROOKS: I don’t like to watch movies at home. I don’t like to watch movies on TV. I really like going to the theater. I like the community experience, especially if it’s a comedy. I like being in the dark and being transported into different worlds, it’s very important to me. And now there’s a thing that’s replaced it. It’s called streaming. I’m afraid to make another movie because I don’t want it to be seen by millions of people on a telephone. Comedies must be seen by at least 100 people in some kind of theater. It’s really heartbreaking to me. You know, movies are still good. Acting is still good. Directing is still good. Writing is still good. It’s where they’re seen that just really gets me.
AP: Is it a little bittersweet to be celebrating the 50th anniversary of “The Producers” without Gene Wilder and (composer) John Morris?
BROOKS: Yeah. It’s heart-rending but it’s what it is. And I’m glad that there will be a lot of young people in the audience who will actually understand it. I kind of understand “The Last Jedi.” I kind of understand it. There were two or three battle scenes, two big fights where I don’t really know who’s fighting and why they’re fighting, you know? But thank God for “The Empire Strikes Back” because I have something I can refer to. So I know some of the names. I know Han Solo. I know some of the names. But I don’t know why they’re fighting, I don’t really know.
I have a grandson, he’s 13 and he knows all the names. He says to me things like, “If you’ve gone to Jakku you’ve gone too far.” And I say well, “What is Jakku?” and he said, “Well it’s a planet.” I really don’t know these planets anymore. Jakku. Ok. But it’s all right. I’m catching up. Young people like big wild future fights. Fighting in the future. I kind of like it too. It’s better than fighting at 47th and Broadway, you know? Two guys get out of a car? Yeah, future fights are much better than two guys in a car. Anyway, you’ve got to ask me two more questions because I’ve got more things I’ve got to get done today.
AP: Well, I’ll keep it to one big one. What sort of impact do you think you’ve had on American comedy?
BROOKS: One never really sees themselves in relationship to the wide world. It’s rather impossible to judge your impact on moviegoers, your impact on people who like your films or who like your television. It’s serious. When they tell me, I’m glad to hear it, but frankly I’ve got to tell you honestly, I walk past the mirror and I say that’s a cute old guy. I don’t think it’s me! I’m not a cute old guy. I’m still 35, you know? We really can’t see ourselves and judge ourselves in relation to other people.
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Odebrecht Unit Vows to Fight Sanctions Imposed by Mexico
The Mexican unit of Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht said on Monday it will fight the sanctions announced last week by the Mexican government, dismissing them as unfair and unjustified.
Mexico banned federal institutions and state governments from doing business with Odebrecht for 2-1/2 years and fined two units of the companies around $30 million each.
The government did not detail what was behind the decisions, but officials said they were related to probes into suspected corruption between the firm and Mexican state oil company Pemex.
In an open letter in the Mexican newspaper Excelsior, Odebrecht Mexico said the sanctions imposed were “completely unfounded and unfair” and it would fight them “with all legal means.”
Odebrecht has spent the past few years at the center of one of the largest corruption scandals in Latin America, and has admitted paying bribes from Peru to Panama and Mexico.
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Russian City of Saransk Tests New Arena Ahead of FIFA World Cup 2018
Russian soccer teams FC Mordovia and FC Zenit-Izhevsk tested a new football stadium on Saturday, April 21. The Mordovia Arena in the Russian City of Saransk will be one of 12 hosts for the FIFA World Cup this summer. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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Technology is Latest Trend Reshaping Fashion
Technology is permeating and changing almost every industry, including fashion. From how clothes are made and purchased to your relationship with what you wear, computing power is reshaping fashion as we know it. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.
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Janet Jackson Extends Her State of the World Tour
Janet Jackson is extending her uber-successful tour with more shows.
The pop icon says her State of the World Tour, which originally wrapped in December, will kick off new dates July 11 in Austin, Texas. Dates have also been added in Rogers, Arkansas; Cincinnati; Syracuse, New York; Hersey, Pennsylvania; Saratoga Springs, New York; Virginia Beach, Virginia; Raleigh; Charlotte; Miami; and Tampa.
Tickets for the new dates go on sale Tuesday.
Jackson’s State of the World Tour, which toured United States and Canada, was a critically acclaimed success.
The singer will also play a number of music festivals this summer, including Essence, FYF, Panorama and Outside Lands.
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App Helps Traveling Muslims Find a Mosque
Muslims who are traveling and looking for a place to pray can now turn to their smart phones for help. A mobile app, called Islamic GPS, helps users find mosques around the world. VOA’s Deborah Block tells us more about this helpful technology.
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