Virtual reality experiences are becoming more physical and more interactive. No longer just a “lean back” experience, the immersive technology is taking viewers out of the living room and into entirely new worlds. At the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, VOA’s Tina Trinh met with creators who are pushing the boundaries of the digital and physical divide.
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Month: May 2018
Astronomers Given Detailed Map of 1.7 Billion Stars
The European Space Agency has released an updated catalogue of more than 1.7 billion stars in our galaxy, as well as other celestial bodies, such as exoplanets, asteroids and quasars. The new data gives astronomers an unprecedented three-dimensional map for studying the origin of the universe and searching for habitable planets. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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Trump to Meet with Carmakers on Trade, Pollution
President Trump plans to meet next week with leaders from U.S. and foreign carmakers on trade and changes to emission standards.
“When the White House wants to meet with us about our sector and policy, we welcome the opportunity,” Alliance of American Automobile Manufacturers spokeswoman Gloria Bergquist said Wednesday.
The time and agenda of the talks are still to be announced. But the car builders want to make their concerns about possible changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement known to the president.
They are also expected to talk about Trump administration plans to revise strict Obama-era emission standards for U.S. cars and light trucks.
Seventeen states and Washington, D.C., are suing the administration over the plans, accusing the Environmental Protection Agency of breaking the law.
“This is about health. This is about life and death,” California Governor Jerry Brown said Tuesday. “Pollutants coming out of tailpipes does permanent damage to children. The only way we’re going to overcome this is by reducing emissions.”
Brown accused Trump of wanting people to buy more gasoline and create more pollution.
The lawsuit argues the EPA acted arbitrarily and violated the Clean Air Act when it decided emission standards were too high.
In 2012, former president Barack Obama ordered emission standards to be raised to about 21 kilometers per liter of gasoline by 2025. The goal was to cut pollution and make cars and small trucks more energy efficient.
The EPA is seeking to freeze fuel efficiency requirements at 2020 levels until 2026.
EPA chief Scott Pruitt said last month that Obama’s decision was politically based and the emission standards Obama set were too high and did not “comport with reality.”
Pruitt said his EPA will set fresh standards so new cars that use less gas and are safer than older models will be affordable.
But environmental groups said the American public overwhelmingly supports the stricter standards.
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IMF Censures Venezuela
The International Monetary Fund censured Venezuela on Wednesday for failing to hand over essential economic data to the fund.
“The [Executive] Board noted that adequate data provision was an essential first step to understanding Venezuela’s economic crisis and identifying possible solutions,” an IMF statement said.
The board is giving Venezuela another six months to comply or face possible expulsion from the IMF.
“The Fund stands ready to work constructively with Venezuela toward resolving its economic crisis when it is prepared to re-engage with the Fund,” the IMF said.
Venezuela has not responded to the IMF’s action. But President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government has long declined to provide data to the IMF. It regards the IMF as a U.S. tool and part of a Washington-inspired economic war against Venezuela.
Corruption and the collapse of world energy prices has led to an economic calamity in oil-rich Venezuela, including hyperinflation and severe shortages of many basic goods.
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Data Firm at Center of Facebook Privacy Scandal Will Close
The data firm at the center of Facebook’s privacy scandal is declaring bankruptcy and shutting down.
In a statement, Cambridge Analytica says it has been “vilified” for actions it says are both legal and widely accepted as part of online advertising. The firm says the media furor stripped it of its customers and suppliers, forcing it to close.
Cambridge Analytica has been linked to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The British firm suspended CEO Alexander Tayler in April amid investigations.
Cambridge Analytica sought information on Facebook to build psychological profiles on a large portion of the U.S. electorate. The company was able to amass the database quickly with the help of an app that appeared to be a personality test. The app collected data on tens of millions of people and their Facebook friends, even those who did not download the app themselves.
Facebook has since tightened its privacy restrictions. Cambridge has denied wrongdoing, and Trump’s campaign has said it didn’t use Cambridge’s data.
The firm has said it is committed to helping the U.K. investigation into Facebook and how it uses data. But U.K. Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said in March the firm failed to meet a deadline to produce the information requested.
Denham said the prime allegation against Cambridge Analytica is that it acquired personal data in an unauthorized way, adding that the data provisions act requires services like Facebook to have strong safeguards against misuse of data.
your ads here!Hawking’s Last Physics Paper Argues for a ‘Simpler’ Cosmos
Weeks after his death, physicist Stephen Hawking has delivered his last thoughts about the nature of the cosmos, and he says it may be simpler than often believed.
Well, simpler if you understand theoretical physics, anyway. It remains incomprehensible for the rest of us.
A paper that outlines his view, written with Thomas Hertog of the University of Leuven in Belgium before Hawking’s death in March, has been published by the Journal of High Energy Physics. Hertog had announced the new theory last year at a conference celebrating Hawking’s 75th birthday.
The University of Cambridge, where Hawking worked, announced the publication on Wednesday.
Here’s a very simplified version of what it says. First, some background.
Scientists believe our universe sprang into existence with the Big Bang, followed by an unimaginably rapid expansion known as inflation. Within our observable universe, inflation ended long ago.
But some ideas of inflation say it never stops, persisting in other regions of the cosmos forever. This eternal inflation produces a “multiverse,” a collection of pocket universes of which our own universe is just one.
There may be an infinite number of these pocket universes. If they’re all very different, then how typical is the universe we live in, where scientists make their observations?
That’s a key question for understanding the fundamental laws of nature, and finding a way to estimate what types of universes are probable is a big challenge, said physics professor David Kaiser of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Many people have tried to tackle that question, but Hawking approached it from a point of view shaped by his long study of the intersection of quantum theory and gravity, he said.
Hawking’s paper suggests that there may be a much smaller range of possibilities for universe types than previous estimates had suggested. So “the behavior of our own, observable universe might not be a rare outlier, but perhaps [be] relatively typical,” Kaiser said in an email.
“Naturally,” Kaiser said, “this is all rather speculative.”
Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics called it “a stimulating, but not revolutionary paper.”
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Facebook Taps Advisers for Audits on Bias and Civil Rights
Facebook has enlisted two outside advisers to examine how it treats underrepresented communities and whether it has a liberal bias.
Civil rights leader Laura Murphy will examine civil rights issues, along with law firm Relman, Dane & Colfax. Former Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, will examine concerns about a liberal bias on Facebook.
The moves come as Facebook deals with a privacy scandal related to access of tens of millions of users’ data by a consulting firm affiliated with President Donald Trump. CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress on the issue last month. Facebook also has faced criticisms over a deluge of fake news and Russian election interference.
The audits were reported earlier by Axios. Facebook says the feedback will help Facebook improve and serve users more effectively.
your ads here!‘Jazz Ambassadors’ Tells Story of American Diplomacy Through Music
A new documentary about U.S. Public Diplomacy during the Cold War premieres Friday on Public Broadcasting System (PBS) television in the United Sates.
Jazz Ambassadors, a remarkable story of music, diplomacy and race, features a group of now high-profile and legendary jazz performers, including trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.
Gillespie, who died in 1993, was an instrumentalist, a composer, arranger, improviser, singer, bandleader and music innovator. He went on tour of the Middle East and Turkey to help counter Soviet stories about American racism.
His 1942 song, “A Night in Tunisia,” was a hit — not only in Tunisia — but in the Middle East and North Africa.
“A Night in Tunisia,” with its trademark blend of Afro-Cuban rhythms and Asian flow was considered inspirational by many, and became one of the signature pieces of his “be-bop” jazz revolution in 1940s.
The documentary also features trumpeter Louis Armstrong, whose photo at the foot of Giza pyramid and the Sphinx became very popular in the Middle East, pianists Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck, arranger Quincy Jones, drummer Charlie Persip, and clarinetist Benny Goodman, who became one of America’s most important cultural ambassadors.
The idea behind Jazz Ambassadors was spurred by Willis Conover, the popular Voice of America radio broadcaster, whose short-wave jazz show helped contribute to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Conover’s show helped audiences worldwide develop a passion for American jazz.
your ads here!Kanye West Criticized by Campaigners for ‘Unhelpful’ Stance on Slavery
Rapper Kanye West’s remarks about slavery being a choice were criticised on Wednesday by campaigners as disrespectful to victims and damaging to global efforts to eradicate the crime.
The U.S. award-winning musician’s comments on the transatlantic slave trade came in a video interview on Tuesday at the California offices of celebrity website TMZ.com.
During the TMZ interview, shown on its website and shared widely on social media, West says: “When you hear about slavery for 400 years. For 400 years? That sounds like a choice.”
Amid outrage, he later said on Twitter: “Of course I know that slaves did not get shackled and put on a boat by free will. “My point is for us to have stayed in that position even though the numbers were on our side means that we were mentally enslaved.”
Yet his initial remarks belittle the nature of modern slavery, said Justine Currell, executive director of British charity Unseen.
“Suggesting anyone chooses a life of abuse and exploitation is incredibly unhelpful and disrespectful to those who have experienced slavery and those who are still being treated in this way,” Currell told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Estimates vary widely, but as many as 28 million Africans are believed to have been shipped across the Atlantic and enslaved in the Americas between the 15th and 19th centuries.
About 40 million people are now thought to be trapped in forced labour and forced marriages, with women and girls making up 70 percent of victims, according to a landmark joint estimate by the United Nations and rights group Walk Free Foundation.
“More people are enslaved today than at any other point in history,” said David Westlake, chief executive of the International Justice Mission UK, an anti-trafficking charity. “Just like slavery was not a choice for people sold during the transatlantic slave trade, slavery is not a choice today.”
Following a year’s Twitter silence, the rapper and fashion designer, has posted a series of startling interviews, tweets and videos, saying he may run for U.S. president, promising four new albums and comparing himself to Henry Ford and Walt Disney.
While condemning his comments, British anti-trafficking charity The Salvation Army said the global attention on West could cast a wider spotlight on the issue of modern slavery.
“That we are talking about slavery today because someone in the public eye has referenced it, may help to remind people that it is still going on right now in every community,” said Anne Read, director of anti-trafficking and slavery at the charity.
your ads here!US Centenarian Record Runner Publishes Inspiring Memoir
A 102-year-old woman from New York, who set a world record as a runner only seven years ago, has published a memoir documenting the achievements and tribulations of her challenging life. Ida Keeling’s newly published book is titled Can’t Nothing Bring Me Down. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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ESA’s Mars Rover Undergoes Testing
If everything goes according to the plan, the European Space Agency, ESA, will launch its first robotic exploration vehicle to Mars in 2020. A prototype of the advanced 6-wheeled rover is now undergoing various tests in order to prove that it will be able to withstand the extreme environmental conditions on Mars. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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‘Amazing China’ Documentary More Fiction Than Fact
A Chinese company that manufactured Ivanka Trump shoes and has been accused of serious labor abuses is being celebrated in a blockbuster propaganda film for extending China’s influence around the globe.
The state-backed documentary “Amazing China” portrays the Huajian Group as a beneficent force spreading prosperity — in this case, by hiring thousands of Ethiopians at wages a fraction of what they’d have to pay in China. But in Ethiopia, Huajian workers told The Associated Press they work without safety equipment for pay so low they can barely make ends meet.
“I’m left with nothing at the end of the month,” said Ayelech Geletu, 21, who told the AP she earns a base monthly salary of 1,400 Birr ($51) at Huajian’s factory in Lebu, outside Addis Ababa. “Plus, their treatment is bad. They shout at us whenever they want.”
With epic cinematography, “Amazing China” — produced by China Central Television and the state-owned China Film Group Co. Ltd. — articulates a message of how China would like to be seen as it pursues President Xi Jinping’s vision of a globally resurgent nation, against a reality that doesn’t always measure up.
China’s ruling Communist Party recently announced it would take direct control of major broadcasters and assume regulatory power over everything from film and TV to books and news.
As the party deepens its ability to cultivate “unity of thought” among citizens, “Amazing China” demonstrates the scope of China’s propaganda machine, which not only crafted a stirring documentary about China’s renaissance under Xi but also helped manufacture an adoring audience for it.
The movie, which weaves together extraordinary feats of engineering and military, environmental and cultural achievements, hit theaters three days before China’s rubber-stamp legislature convened to amend the constitution and allow Xi to potentially rule China for life.
The star — duly noted by IMDb.com — is Xi himself, who appears more than 30 times in the 90-minute film.
“Amazing China” presents Huajian as an inspiring example of China exporting the success of its own economic miracle by creating transformative jobs for thousands of poor Ethiopians and sharing China’s knowledge, language and can-do discipline to build a new industrial foundation for Ethiopia’s economy.
The company is celebrated as a model of the inclusiveness at the heart of a much larger project: Xi’s signature One Belt One Road initiative, a plan to spread Chinese infrastructure and influence across dozens of countries so ambitious in scope that it’s been compared to the U.S.-led Marshall Plan after World War II.
“In opening to the outside world, China’s pursuit is not to only make our lives better, but to make the lives of others better,” the narrator says.
In the film, Huajian chairman Zhang Huarong stands before neat rows of Ethiopian workers singing a song about unity, describing himself as a father to his employees, who “like me very much.”
But four current and former Huajian employees told the AP their wages were so low that they struggled to pay their bills. They said they had no protective gear, were forced to work 12 hours a day and participate in military-style physical drills, were not permitted to form a union and were regularly yelled at by their Chinese managers.
All that made it hard for them to relate to the inspirational video about Huajian circulated by mobile phone with its sweeping shots of a gleaming factory and a soundtrack that repeats in operatic Mandarin: “Huajian has come, Huajian has come … holding the torch of hope.”
“If someone complains, he will be accused of disturbing the workplace and will be fired right away,” said Ebissa Gari, a 22-year-old who estimated he earns 960 Birr ($35) a month. “That’s why we keep quiet and work no matter how much we are subdued.”
Getahun Alemu, a 20-year-old who quit Huajian last year to continue his studies, complained of inadequate safety gear.
“There are chemicals that hurt our eyes and nose, and machines that cut our hands,” he said. “They have no idea about hand gloves! If you refuse to work without that protective gear, then you will be told to leave the company.”
Huajian declined the AP’s requests for comment. Ivanka Trump’s brand said it no longer does business with Huajian and “has always and continues to take supply chain integrity very seriously.”
Huajian’s investment in Ethiopia was part of a government-led industrialization drive. In the last few years, Ethiopia’s leaders and business allies came under intense criticism, with more than 300 businesses attacked by protesters who saw them as bolstering a repressive regime.
These days, armed soldiers stand guard at the entrance to the Eastern Industrial Zone in Ethiopia’s Oromia region, where Huajian opened its first factory.
Six years after the company’s arrival, the dream of turning Ethiopia into a shoe-manufacturing hub remains unrealized, and few harbor illusions about the main incentive for Huajian’s investment in a country where there is no legal minimum wage.
“These companies are moving out of Asia and coming to Africa to save labor costs,” said Fitsum Arega, who recently stepped down as head of the Ethiopian Investment Commission to become an adviser to the new prime minister. He praised Huajian for employing more than 5,000 Ethiopians, but said the company “could have done better.”
“I’m not saying all employees are happy and there are no abuses here and there,” Arega said, adding that the government pushes companies to protect workers. “There’s a labor law which actually the companies say favors the employees.”
The Chinese-owned Eastern Industrial Zone effectively took fertile land from Ethiopian farmers and handed it over to foreign investors — a strategy the Ethiopian government is rethinking, according to Nemera Mamo, a teaching fellow in economics at the University of London.
“You can clearly see that these industrial zones are absolutely favorable to the Chinese investors, but not to the local communities or the local private investors,” he said. Huajian workers told the AP they made 960 Birr ($35) to 1,700 Birr ($62) a month. A basic living wage in Ethiopia is about 3,000 Birr ($109) a month, according to Ayele Gelan, a research economist at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research.
In a post promoting “Amazing China” on its official WeChat account, Huajian claimed to be Ethiopia’s largest exporter — an exaggeration also promulgated by China’s official Xinhua News Agency.
Huajian is Ethiopia’s largest shoe exporter, shipping out $19.3 million worth of goods last fiscal year, according to Ethiopia’s Leather Industry Development Institute. But coffee producer Mullege PLC said it exported $42 million worth of coffee during the same period and that other companies export even more.
Huajian’s record within China also has been troubled. In at least five cases since 2015, Huajian sued workers in Chinese court rather than pay compensation mandated by a government arbitration panel. Huajian lost every case, court records show, and the court had to freeze Huajian’s assets to get one worker the 44,174 yuan ($7,000) he was owed.
Last year, Huajian found itself entangled in labor and human rights controversies that made global headlines but attracted little attention in China’s official media. Three men working with the New York-based non-profit group China Labor Watch were arrested after their investigation of Ivanka Trump’s suppliers zeroed in on Huajian. The men are out on bail, but remain under police surveillance.
China Labor Watch founder Li Qiang said Huajian’s factory in Ganzhou, in southeastern Jiangxi province, had some of the worst conditions he has ever encountered, including excessive overtime, low pay, and verbal and physical abuse.
Huajian has called those allegations “completely not true to the facts, taken out of context, exaggerated” and accused the investigators of conducting industrial espionage — a charge that was parroted in China’s party-controlled media.
Wei Tie, the director of “Amazing China,” said he wasn’t aware of the controversy surrounding Huajian until the AP informed him. That’s not too surprising given the years of positive coverage of Huajian in party-controlled media and the fact that many foreign news sites, especially Chinese-language ones, are blocked inside China.
Wei said he included the company in the film because it is “introducing China’s experience of prosperity to Africa.”
He said he prefers to focus on the good. “What I did was absorb the essence and discard the dross,” he said, citing a longstanding aphorism of Chinese political thought.
At first glance, Wei’s selective approach appears to have resonated with Chinese audiences. “Amazing China” smashed box-office records for documentary films, raking in 456 million yuan ($72 million) in its first five weeks, according to ticketing website Maoyan.com. It even thumped “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”
Wei attributed this success to the “spontaneous feeling” of citizens inspired by the arc of tremendous progress they’ve witnessed, a national rejuvenation forged with sweat and skill that he compared to Europe’s Renaissance and the pioneering days of the American republic.
In Shanghai, midday screenings during the week sold out immediately, suggesting either unquenchable public appetite or organized bulk ticket sales.
None of the viewers surveyed by AP had purchased their own tickets. Instead, they said they got them from state-run companies, neighborhood committees or government departments that handed them out as part of their “party building work.”
Douban, a popular film review website, blocked users from rating and commenting on the movie. The only entries came from official media, which gave it an 8.5 out of 10 ranking. On IMDb.com, a subsidiary of Amazon, “Amazing China” earned only one star.
But for some, “Amazing China” is balm for old feelings of inferiority and a welcome reaffirmation that China is ready to resume its rightful place in the community of great nations.
“I did not know how good our country is until I watched this movie,” said Zuo Qianyi, a 68-year-old retiree. “I have been to many countries, Britain, Spain, and they are not as good as China, at least not as Shanghai. I am very happy, and I will love my country more.”
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Tomorrow’s Jobs Require Impressing a Bot with Quick Thinking
When Andrew Chamberlain started in his job four years ago in the research group at jobs website Glassdoor.com, he worked in a programming language called Stata.
Then it was R. Then Python. Then PySpark.
“My dad was a commercial printer and did the same thing for 30 years. I have to continually stay on stuff,” said Chamberlain, who is now the chief economist for the site. Chamberlain already has one of the jobs of the future — a perpetually changing, shifting universe of work that requires employees to be critical thinkers and fast on their feet. Even those training for a specific field, from plumbing to aerospace engineering, need to be nimble enough to constantly learn new technologies and apply their skills on the fly.
When companies recruit new workers, particularly for entry-level jobs, they are not necessarily looking for knowledge of certain software. They are looking for what most consider soft skills: problem solving, effective communication and leadership. They also want candidates who show a willingness to keep learning new skills.
“The human being’s role in the workplace is less to do repetitive things all the time and more to do the non-repetitive tasks that bring new kinds of value,” said Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce in the United States.
So, while specializing in a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) field can seem like an easy path to a lucrative first job, employers are telling colleges: You are producing engineers, but they do not have the skills we need.
It is “algorithmic thinking” rather than the algorithm itself that is relevant, said Carnevale.
Finding gems
Out in the field, Marie Artim is looking for potential. As vice president of talent acquisition for car rental firm Enterprise Holdings Inc, she sets out to hire about 8,500 young people every year for a management training program, an enormous undertaking that has her searching college campuses across the country.
Artim started in the training program herself, 26 years ago, as did the Enterprise chief executive, and that is how she gets the attention of young adults and their parents who scoff at a future of renting cars.
According to Artim, the biggest deficit in the millennial generation is autonomous decision-making. They are used to being structured and “syllabused,” she said.
To get students ready, some colleges, and even high schools, are working on building critical thinking skills.
For three weeks in January at the private Westminster Schools in Atlanta, Georgia, students either get jobs or go on trips, which gives them a better sense of what they might do in the future.
At Texas State University in San Marcos, meanwhile, students can take a marketable-skills master class series.
Case studies
One key area zeroes in on case studies that companies are using increasingly to weed out prospects. This means being able to answer hypothetical questions based on a common scenario the employer faces, and showing leadership skills in those scenarios.
The career office at the university also focuses on interview skills. Today, that means teaching kids more than just writing an effective resume and showing up in smart clothes.
They have to learn how to perform best on video and phone interviews, and how to navigate gamification and artificial intelligence bots that many companies are now using in the recruiting process.
Norma Guerra Gaier, director of career services at Texas State, said her son just recently got a job and not until the final step did he even have a phone interview.
“He had to solve a couple of problems on a tech system, and was graded on that. He didn’t even interface with a human being,” Guerra Gaier said.
When companies hire at great volume, they try to balance the technology and face-to-face interactions, said Heidi Soltis-Berner, evolving workforce talent leader at financial services firm Deloitte.
Increasingly, Soltis-Berner does not know exactly what those new hires will be doing when they arrive, aside from what business division they will be serving.
“We build flexibility into that because we know each year there are new skills,” she said.
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British Children Learn the ABCs of FGM to Help End Harmful Practice
As teacher Tanya Mathiason flicked through a slideshow to display diagrams of male and female genitalia to primary school children in northwest London, no one flinched or giggled.
Instead, the students eagerly discussed the meaning of the words: female, genital and mutilation.
“Break those words down: What does female mean? What does genital mean? What does mutilation mean?” said Mathiason, the head of pastoral care at Norbury School in the culturally and ethnically diverse neighborhood of Harrow.
“It means when someone cuts off stuff?” replied one student.
“Harm?” said another.
By the time they leave Norbury School, all 640 students — both boys and girls — will have learned about female genital mutilation (FGM), a ritual that usually involves the partial or total removal of the external genitalia including the clitoris.
An estimated 137,000 women and girls in England and Wales have undergone FGM, according to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).
FGM can cause chronic pain, menstrual problems, recurrent urinary tract infections, cysts and infertility. Some girls hemorrhage to death or die from infections. It can also cause fatal childbirth complications in later life.
Young age
As FGM is mostly carried out between infancy and age 15, school principal Louise Browning said she wanted the students to start learning about it in the third year, at about seven years old.
“I became more aware that FGM was happening to girls at a much younger age than I thought,” Browning told Reuters.
“Who’s to say that we don’t have survivors in our school? I felt I was letting down my girls by not raising this. Our end goal is for this practice to stop.”
Browning and her team worked with the National FGM Centre, run by children’s charity Barnado’s and the Local Government Association, to devise age-appropriate lessons, which they began teaching in Norbury School in 2015.
It is one of only a handful of primary schools in the country that teaches students about FGM, but raising awareness among parents and children was necessary, she said.
FGM mostly affects immigrant communities from various countries including Somalia, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Sudan, Nigeria and Egypt — a demographic that is well-represented in the Harrow school.
“Many of our families, our children, come from FGM-practicing communities so it is really important that they have this knowledge, that they leave here at 11 [years old] knowing what this practice is about,” said pastoral manager Mathiason.
Shocking
FGM is performed by Muslims and Christians and by followers of some indigenous religions. People often believe FGM is required by religion, but it is not mentioned in the Koran or the Bible.
“Most people who do it think it’s in their religion … but no religion actually tells you to do that,” said 11-year-old Khadija, who has learned about FGM since she was seven.
“It’s just shocking because it’s most likely to be parents who would do it. They’re the ones who love you and care about you, but instead they want to harm you,” she added.
In March, a London solicitor accused of forcing his daughter to be circumcised was acquitted, increasing pressure on police and prosecutors who have yet to secure a conviction for FGM more than 30 years after it was outlawed.
The prosecution was only the second to be brought under FGM legislation introduced in 1985.
FGM is underpinned by the desire to control female sexuality, but beliefs around the practice vary enormously. Many believe it purifies the girl, brings her status in the community and prevents promiscuity. Uncut girls risk being ostracized.
Sonita Pobi, head of training at the National FGM Center, said the lessons helped children make sense of the practice and know who to turn to for help, regardless of their cultural background or religion.
“It’s about giving children the vocabulary to speak up when something is wrong. It’s about making children aware about the hidden form of abuse that may happen to them,” Pobi said.
After learning about FGM at Norbury School, 11-year-old Oliver said he felt empowered to help classmates and friends.
“When I first learnt about it, I was quite scared because it was happening. But once I knew quite a bit about it, I knew that I couldn’t really sort out the situation, but I would know who to speak to,” he said.
His classmate Naylen, also 11, agreed.
“I think the FGM lessons are good for children to learn because … we could make a change to all of these harmful activities,” he said.
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Facebook’s Zuckerberg Vows to ‘Keep Building’ in No-apology Address
With a smile that suggested the hard part of an “intense year” might be behind him, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed developers Tuesday and pledged the company would build its way out of its worst-ever privacy debacle.
It was a clear and deliberate turning point for a company that’s been hunkered down since mid-March. For first time in several weeks, Zuckerberg went before a public audience and didn’t apologize for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a political data-mining firm accessed data from as many as 87 million Facebook accounts for the purpose of influencing elections. Or for a deluge of fake news and Russian election interference.
Instead, Zuckerberg sought to project a “we’re all in this together” mood that was markedly different from his demeanor during 10 hours of congressional testimony just a few weeks ago. His presentation also marked a major change for the company, which seems relieved to be largely done with the damage control that has preoccupied it for the past six weeks.
On Tuesday, speaking in San Jose at the F8 gathering of software developers, Zuckerberg said to cheers that the company was reopening app reviews, the process that gets new and updated apps on its services, which Facebook had shut down in late March as a result of the privacy scandal.
Investing in security
Zuckerberg then vowed to “keep building,” and reiterated that Facebook was investing a lot in security and in strengthening its systems so they can’t be exploited to meddle with elections, including the U.S. midterms later this year. The company had previously announced almost all of those measures.
“The hardest decision I made wasn’t to invest in safety and security,” Zuckerberg said. “The hard part was figuring out how to move forward on everything else we need to do, too.”
He also unveiled a new feature that gives users the ability to clear their browsing history from the platform, much the same way people can do in web browsers. Then Zuckerberg returned to techno-enthusiasm mode.
Facebook executives trotted out fun features, most notably a new dating service aimed at building “meaningful, long-term relationships,” in a swipe at sites like Tinder. After Facebook announced its entry into the online dating game, shares of Tinder owner Match Group Inc. plummeted 22 percent.
Poking fun at himself, Zuckerberg unveiled a “Watch Party” feature that gives users the ability to watch video together — such as, he suggested, “your friend testifying before Congress.” Up flashed video of Zuckerberg’s own turn on Capitol Hill.
“Let’s not do that again soon,” he said.
Zuckerberg got big cheers when he announced that the thousands of people in attendance would get Facebook’s latest virtual reality headset — the portable $199 Oculus Go — for free. “Thank you!” he yelled.
Salute to WhatsApp CEO
Zuckerberg also went out of his way to thank Jan Koum, the co-founder and CEO of messaging platform WhatsApp, who announced his departure Tuesday. Facebook paid $19.3 billion for WhatsApp in 2014.
Despite reports that Koum left over concerns about how the company handles private data, Zuckerberg described him warmly as “a tireless advocate for privacy and encryption.”
Some analysts said Zuckerberg’s performance bolstered his chances of navigating the company out of its privacy scandal and overcoming concerns that it can’t handle its fake-news and election problems.
By leading off with Facebook’s security and privacy responsibilities, then continuing to extend Facebook’s ambitions to connect people in new ways, Zuckerberg successfully “walked the tightrope,” said Geoff Blaber, vice president of research and market analysis firm CCS Insight.
“F8 felt like the first time Facebook has been on the front foot since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke,” Blaber said.
Dan Goldstein, president of digital marketing agency Page 1 Solutions, said the company “is getting the message” about privacy.
“Time will tell, but this may help Facebook overcome the shadow of the Cambridge Analytica scandal,” he said.
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US Cigarette Makers Ordered to Display New Warnings
A U.S. federal court has given tobacco companies until June 18 to post a corrective statement on their websites about the dangers of their products and their efforts to mislead the public about those risks.
The companies were also ordered to include the statement on cigarette packages by November, according to the order issued Tuesday. It will also apply to any social media campaigns aimed at promoting cigarettes.
The corrective statements will state, among other things, that cigarette smoking causes on average 1,200 American deaths per day; that cigarettes are designed to create and sustain nicotine addiction; that low-tar, light, and natural cigarettes are no less harmful that regular ones; and that secondhand smoke causes disease and death in non-smokers.
The statements are part of a 2006 injunction against major U.S. cigarette makers to “prevent and restrain” further deception of the American people regarding tobacco use, a Justice Department statement said.
Three major U.S. tobacco companies, R.J. Reynolds, Phillip Morris and ITG Brands, have been fighting to weaken and delay the statements since 2006.
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Through a Fog of Data, Air of Indian Cities’ Looks Dirtiest
India should follow China’s example and clean up the air in its cities, which are among the world’s worst for outdoor pollution, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.
The WHO’s database of more than 4,300 cities showed Indian cities such as New Delhi, Varanasi and Patna were among the most polluted, based on the amount of particulate matter under 2.5 micrograms found in every cubic meter of air.
Chinese cities such as Xingtai and Shijiazhuang and the Saudi refining hub at Jubail were also highly polluted, but the data for those places was 4 to 5 years old, and Maria Neira, WHO’s head of public health, said China had made big improvements that India should follow.
“There is a big step at the government level [in China] declaring war on air pollution,” Neira said. “One of the reasons for that is that the health argument was very strongly presented, and the fact that the citizens were really breathing air that was totally unacceptable.”
“We would be very happy if we would see a similar movement now in India which is one of the countries for which we are particularly concerned, although there are good initiatives which can be put in place quickly, still the levels are very high and we would like to see a similar decision and leadership.”
The WHO says nine out of 10 people on the planet breathe polluted air, and it kills 7 million people each year, almost all of them in poor countries in Asia and Africa. About a quarter of deaths from heart disease, stroke and lung cancer can be attributed to air pollution, the WHO says.
Globally, outdoor air pollution has remained high and largely unchanged in the past six years, while household air pollution has got worse in many poorer countries, as people continue to cook with solid fuel or kerosene, instead of cleaner fuels such as gas and electricity.
“The transition to clean fuels and technology in the home, clean household energy, is too slow. It’s been three decades and we still have three billion people primarily relying on [polluting] fuels and technologies, and that’s for cooking alone,” said WHO technical officer Heather Adair-Rohani.
WHO’s global assessment is based on satellite data and modeling overlaid on the database of cities, which is self-selecting because it is based on voluntary reporting, with numbers that have been hugely revised since the previous report.
The most polluted city in 2016’s report, Zabol in Iran, has had its pollution level cut fourfold in the latest version of the database, and now appears to be cleaner than Australia’s capital Canberra.
“The data we are presenting today is, I think, the most accurate you can expect at the moment,” Neira said.
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CDC: Tick, Mosquito-Borne Infections Surge in US
The number of Americans sickened each year by bites from infected mosquitoes, ticks or fleas tripled from 2004 through 2016, with infection rates spiking sharply in 2016 as a result of a Zika outbreak, U.S. health officials said Tuesday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that some 96,075 diseases caused by bites by mosquitoes, ticks and fleas were reported in 2016, up from 27,388 in 2004, in an analysis of data from the CDC’s National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System.
Infections in 2016 went up 73 percent from 2015, reflecting the emergence of Zika, which is transmitted by mosquitoes and can cause severe birth defects. Zika was the most common disease borne by ticks, mosquitoes and fleas reported in 2016, with 41,680 cases reported, followed by Lyme disease, with 36,429 cases, almost double the number in 2004.
The increases may be a result of climate change, with increased temperatures and shorter winters boosting populations of ticks, mosquitoes and other disease-carrying creatures known as “vectors.”
“It enables these ticks to expand to new areas. Where there are ticks, there comes diseases,” said Lyle Petersen, director of the CDC’s Division of Vector-Borne Diseases.
Warmer summer temperatures also tend to bring outbreaks of mosquito-borne illnesses, Petersen said.
While Zika stood out as the latest emerging threat in the report, it also showed a long-term increase in cases of tick-borne Lyme disease, which can attack the heart and nervous system if left untreated.
Researchers warned that their numbers likely do not include every case, as many infections are not reported.
These increases are due to many factors, including growing populations of the insects that transmit them and increased exposure outside of the United States by travelers who unknowingly transport diseases back home.
The CDC said more than 80 percent of vector-control organizations across the United States lack the capacity to prevent and control these fast-spreading, demanding illnesses.
Petersen said that federal programs are increasing funding for those organizations.
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Facebook to Offer Dating Service
Facebook will offer its first dating service, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Tuesday, signaling the entry of the world’s largest social network into a growing market that sent shares of established dating site operators tumbling.
Zuckerberg told software developers at Facebook’s annual F8 conference that a dating service would be a natural fit for a company that specializes in connecting people online.
“There are 200 million people on Facebook that list themselves as single, so clearly there’s something to do here,”
Zuckerberg said.
Facebook users have been able reveal on the network whether they are single or in a relationship since it first went live in February 2004.
Zuckerberg said Facebook was building the dating service with an emphasis on privacy, a sensitive subject for people who use online dating and for Facebook as the company reels from a scandal over its handling of personal information.
A dating service could increase the time people spend on Facebook and be a “big problem” for competitors such as Match Group, said James Cordwell, an analyst at Atlantic Equities. Match, the owner of popular mobile dating app Tinder and OkCupid, calls itself the “global leader in dating” on its website.
“But the initial functionality looks relatively basic compared to those offered by Match’s services, so the impact Facebook has on the dating space will be down to how well it executes in this area,” Cordwell said.
Match Group shares fell more than 23 percent on the news of Facebook’s service. IAC, Match Group’s parent company, dropped more than 15 percent. Sparks Networks, owner of JDate and ChristianMingle, fell 7.3 percent.
A prototype displayed on screens at the F8 conference showed a heart shape at the top-right corner of the Facebook app.
Pressing on it will take people to their dating profile if they have set one up.
The prototype was built around local, in-person events, allowing people to browse other attendees and send them messages.
It did not appear to have a feature to “swipe” left or right on potential matches to signal interest, as Tinder and other established services have.
Dating service optional
The feature will be for finding long-term relationships, “not just hook-ups,” Zuckerberg said. It will be optional and will launch soon, he added, without giving a specific day.
Facebook Chief Product Officer Chris Cox said in a separate presentation that the company would share more over the next few months.
Cox said he had been thinking about a dating feature on Facebook since 2005, when he joined the company about a year after its founding.
The company began seriously considering adding a dating service in 2016, when Zuckerberg posted on his Facebook page a photo of a couple who had met on the network, Cox said.
Thousands of people responded to Zuckerberg’s post with similar stories about meeting partners on Facebook, Cox said.
“That’s what got the gears turning,” he said.
People will be able to start a conversation with a potential match by commenting on one of their photos, but for safety reasons that Cox did not specify, the conversations will be text-only, he said.
Facebook executives were quick to highlight other features for safety and privacy, noting that dating activity would not show up in Facebook’s centerpiece News Feed.
Concerns about privacy on Facebook have grown since the social network’s admission in March that the data of millions of users was wrongly harvested by political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.
A dating service “represents a potentially challenging situation if Facebook can’t fulfill its promise to offer dating services in a privacy-protected and safe way,” said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at eMarketer.
However, “I’m sure it will make good use of the data Facebook has been able to collect about its users,” she added.
‘Clear history’
Zuckerberg also said on Tuesday that Facebook was building a new privacy control called “clear history” to allow users to delete browsing history, similar to the option of clearing cookies in a browser.
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US Clamps Down on Kid-Friendly Packaging for E-cigarette Liquids
U.S. regulators on Tuesday issued warnings to 13 companies selling e-cigarette liquids for using child-friendly images in their packaging, in the latest crackdown aimed at preventing tobacco sales to minors.
The packaging resembles that of juice boxes, candy or cookies, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission said, noting a recent increase in the number of reports to poison control centers.
“No tobacco products should be marketed in a way that endangers kids — especially by using imagery that misleads them into thinking the products are things they’d eat or drink,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement.
The FDA has made several sweeping moves in the past few months, including setting a maximum nicotine level for tobacco products as the regulator attempts to combat tobacco and nicotine addiction.
E-cigarettes are handheld electronic devices that vaporize an “e-liquid” fluid typically including nicotine and a flavor component. They have been grabbing market share away from traditional tobacco companies, and are available in different flavors.
“It takes a very small amount of these e-liquids, in some cases less than half a teaspoon … to [have] a fatal effect for a kid and even less than that to make them very, very sick,” an agency executive said on a call with reporters.
The FDA cited examples including “One Mad Hit Juice Box,” which resembles children’s apple juice boxes and “Twirly Pop,” which not only resembles a Unicorn Pop lollipop, but comes with one.
Six of the letters issued were for dual violations where the products were illegally sold to minors online as well as packaged inappropriately.
“We don’t have to wait until there’s been an actual injury of a child we can take action if it’s likely to cause substantial injury,” Acting Federal Trade Commission Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen said.
The latest warnings come a week after the FDA sent 40 warning letters to companies on the sale of tobacco products to minors, particularly those made by Juul Labs Inc.
Twelve of the vendors issued warning letters on Tuesday did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
Nick Warrender of Lifted Liquids and E-Liquid Retail, which makes Vape Heads Sour Smurf Sauce, said the product had been pulled from the market and repackaged six months ago.
“We … took a lot of money and steps to change the product to something that wouldn’t be [as] child-appealing as the original packaging,” Warrender said. “It seems to be a false narrative that they [regulators] are pushing.”
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Trump Extends Steel, Aluminum Tariff Exemptions for EU, Canada, Mexico
U.S. President Donald Trump is extending tariff exemptions on aluminum and steel exports from the European Union, Canada, and Mexico for at least another month.
The temporary exemptions of the tariffs already imposed on such nations as China, Japan, and Russia, were to have expired Tuesday.
But the White House says it is giving negotiators 30 more days to work out a deal.
The European Commission criticized the temporary extension in a statement Tuesday, saying the EU has been willing to discuss the issue and “will not negotiate under threat.”
“The U.S. decision prolongs market uncertainty, which is already affecting business decisions,” it said. “The EU should be fully and permanently exempted from these measures, as they cannot be justified on the grounds of national security.”
Trump has called the tariffs a national security issue because overproduction by some countries makes U.S. exports more expensive and undesirable on the global markets.
WATCH: US trade and tariffs
The White House also announced late Monday it reached a final deal on steel exports with South Korea — granting it a permanent exemption — while reaching agreements in principle with Argentina, Australia, and Brazil.
“These agreements underscore the Trump administration’s successful strategy to reach fair outcomes with allies to protect our national security and address global challenges to the steel and aluminum industries,” a White House statement said.
Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum in March on China, Russia, Japan, and other exporters to for what he says is a remedy for unfair competition.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and other senior U.S. officials head to China this week for trade talks, as reminded by Trump in a post on Twitter.
“Delegation heading to China to begin talks on the Massive Trade Deficit that has been created with our Country. Very much like North Korea, this should have been fixed years ago, not now. Same with other countries and NAFTA…but it will all get done. Great Potential for USA!”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday imposing tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum would be a major disruption because U.S. and Canadian industries — including U.S. car and fighter jet manufacturing — are closely integrated.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is warning of a possible trade war if the U.S. does not grant the European Union a permanent exemption.
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US to Delay Decision on Tariffs Until June 1
U.S. President Donald Trump has postponed his decision on whether to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from the European Union, Canada and Mexico until June 1. The announcement Monday provides more time to negotiate deals to exempt those countries from U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs. The Trump administration announced broad tariffs in early March that went into effect for China, Russia, Japan and many other exporters. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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